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skill-recorder

Desktop app that records a real work session — clicks, apps, pages, narration — and uses Copilot CLI to reconstruct intent + steps, then generates a reusable SKILL.md or scheduled Automation.

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Curator's take

Demonstration beats description: recording yourself doing a task once captures the tacit steps you'd never think to write down, and generalizing to native tools (gh, web_fetch) instead of replaying clicks is the right call. When NOT: it requires GitHub Copilot access and its Automation output targets Microsoft's agent surfaces (Scout, Cowork, Copilot Studio) — the SKILL.md is portable, the rest of the pipeline isn't; screen recording means trusting local capture with everything on screen.

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README.md

Skill Recorder

Record yourself doing a task once, then turn it into a skill your AI agent can repeat.

Skill Recorder captures a real work session on your screen: the clicks, the app and window switches, the pages you visit, and (if you want) your spoken narration. It then uses the GitHub Copilot CLI to reconstruct what you actually did as a clear intent plus an ordered list of steps. From there, one step turns that single run into something an agent can reuse:

  • a Skill: a SKILL.md procedure an agent runs on demand, or
  • an Automation: the same procedure on a schedule or trigger.

Both prefer the agent's native tools (like the gh CLI or web_fetch) over replaying UI clicks, and generalize from your one example, so recording yourself submitting one form can teach the agent to submit all of them.

Skill Recorder capture window: a record button, timer, an optional narration toggle with language and microphone settings, and readiness checks    Skill Recorder sessions view: recorded sessions on the left, the reconstructed intent and ordered steps on the right

How it works

  1. 🔴 Record. Hit record (or ⌘⇧R / Ctrl+Shift+R from anywhere) and just do your task. Skill Recorder captures your screen and activity locally, in the background.
  2. 🎛️ Control. While recording, a small always-on-top bar shows capture and microphone state. Mute, unmute, or switch mics on the fly, then finish, or discard (with a confirmation) if the take didn't go to plan.
  3. 🧠 Analyze. Click Analyze and GitHub Copilot reconstructs one overall intent and an ordered list of steps. Review and edit until it reads right.
  4. ✨ Create. From an approved analysis, generate a reusable Skill and/or a scheduled Automation.

Get started

Skill Recorder is published as a source release: one command downloads a pinned Node.js runtime, builds the exact release commit on your machine, and adds a Skill Recorder (Source) app you can relaunch anytime. Nothing is installed globally. You'll need a GitHub account with Copilot access; the Copilot CLI ships with the app.

macOS is the primary target. Windows 11 (x64 and ARM64) is supported too (see WINDOWS-VALIDATION.md).

Install it

Open the latest release and copy the command for your platform. Each release pins an exact commit, so the real command looks like the patterns below with <40-character-release-commit> filled in.

macOS / Ubuntu

commit="<40-character-release-commit>"; curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/skill-recorder/$commit/install.sh" | SKILL_RECORDER_COMMIT="$commit" bash

The commit pins both the downloaded script and the source it builds. To keep the app running after the terminal closes, add SKILL_RECORDER_DETACHED=1 after the pipe:

commit="<40-character-release-commit>"; curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/skill-recorder/$commit/install.sh" | SKILL_RECORDER_COMMIT="$commit" SKILL_RECORDER_DETACHED=1 bash

On macOS this adds a Skill Recorder (Source) app to ~/Applications (relaunch from Spotlight, Launchpad, or the Dock). On Ubuntu it adds a matching application entry.

Windows (PowerShell)

$commit="<40-character-release-commit>"; $env:SKILL_RECORDER_COMMIT=$commit; irm "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/skill-recorder/$commit/install.ps1" | iex

This adds Skill Recorder (Source) shortcuts to your desktop and Start Menu.

Then record

  1. Grant Screen Recording. On first launch, macOS asks for Screen Recording permission; grant it and you're ready to record.
  2. Record, Analyze, Create. Do your task, then Analyze. The first time you Analyze, S

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