OpenScreen: MCP server, setup and security

What OpenScreen does

According to its repository: “Free, open-source screen recorder and video editor that agents drive over stdio (the desktop app's own executable started with mcp): record the screen, trim, zoom, caption, annotate and export demo videos, and add custom WGSL shader effects that export exactly as previewed.”

An MCP server gives an AI agent extra tools it calls during the conversation: the agent reads their description, decides to use them and gets the result back. OpenScreen is listed under Image, video and audio, a category of 67 servers in the directory, where it ranks #4 by stars.

Topics declared by the repository: electron, open-source, screen-capture, screen-recorder, cross-platform, ffmpeg.

Installing and connecting OpenScreen

No package or remote server is declared in the official MCP registry: you install it from source, following the repository README.

Like any MCP server, you declare it in your client's configuration (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Codex…): a name, the command that starts it or its URL, and any environment variables. The client then starts it and lists its tools. Project language: TypeScript. Listed systems: macOS, Windows, Linux.

Security: what to check

An MCP server runs code with the rights you give it, and the model reads its tool descriptions: a malicious or compromised server can hijack the agent. Read the code, or pick a maintained and widely used server, before connecting it.

None of the risk signals we track (system access, secrets, missing licence, abandonment) applies to OpenScreen. That does not replace reading the code.

Good practice: grant only the rights needed (least privilege), require human approval for irreversible actions, and run the AI agent security check.

Project activity and maintenance

Created on March 14, 2026, the getopenscreen/openscreen repository has 4,867 stars and 325 forks, with 44 open issues. It has more stars than 97% of the servers in the directory. It received changes this month. Version published in the registry: 2.1.1 (October 18, 2026).

Stars measure attention, not quality: a recent, heavily promoted project can collect them fast, while a useful but niche server will have few.