synthetic-screen-recording
Synthetic Screen Recording (Remotion TerminalScene)
Decision this skill answers: When the user wants a screen-recording-looking demo of a terminal, CLI tool, or coding workflow — do I capture the real desktop (OS screen recording via screen_recorder, Windows-MCP, Cap, or Playwright), or do I synthesize it in Remotion with the TerminalScene component?
Heuristic: If the agent can author the exact command/output sequence in advance, synthesize. Only capture live when the real behavior is unpredictable, needs a real app UI, or the user explicitly asked for a real recording.
Why this exists
v3 of the OpenMontage showcase tried to use Windows-MCP + screen_recorder to drive a Git-Bash window for the install walkthrough. It stalled on window positioning, focus races, and taskbar privacy concerns. We pivoted to pure Remotion rendering — a React component named TerminalScene that draws a fake terminal and types commands character-by-character. The output is visually indistinguishable from a real screen recording (same traffic-light window chrome, blinking cursor, scrolling output) but deterministic, privacy-safe, pixel-perfect at 1080p, and pace-controllable to the frame.
That component + pattern is the capability this skill makes discoverable.