Pagecast

Pagecast

English | 廣東話

Turn AI browser interactions into polished product demos.

Tell your AI to demo your app. Pagecast records the browser, tracks every click and keystroke, and exports a shipping-ready GIF or MP4 — with tooltip zoom overlays and cinematic pan effects. No screen recorder. No video editor. No post-production. Make a demo gif automatically after every PR if you want.

Without Pagecast — plain screen recording, you do the demonstration yourself and record yourself and you need to repead every time you changed the UI. You can see the cursor moving, but the actual interactions are too small to follow:

With Pagecast (tooltip mode) — a magnified close-up appears on every interaction so viewers can actually see what's happening, and it design what to demo and make a new demo gif automatically:

With Pagecast (cinematic mode) — the camera crops and pans to follow each action, and it design what to demo and make a new demo gif automatically:

Two ways to use Pagecast

1. Product demo tool (the main use case)

You built a web app. You need a demo GIF for the README. Normally you'd:

1. Open a screen recorder, manually click through the demo
2. Open a video editor, zoom into the important parts
3. Export, figure out ffmpeg, optimize the file size
4. UI changes → repeat everything

With Pagecast, you tell your AI:

"Record a demo of localhost:3000 for my GitHub README"

The AI opens a real browser, interacts with your app, and exports a polished GIF with auto-zoom on every interaction. UI changes? Just re-run. The demo rebuilds itself.

2. Screen recording tool (also works)

Don't need zoom effects? Pagecast works as a plain screen recorder too:

"Record my app for 10 seconds and export as MP4"

The AI records, you get a .webm → optimized .gif or .mp4. Two-pass ffmpeg palette optimization, platform-aware sizing, one tool call.

Export Modes

Mode	Tool	What it does	Best for
Tooltip	smart_export	Full viewport visible + magnified tooltip inset near each interaction	README demos, product pages
Cinematic	cinematic_export	Camera crops and pans to follow each interaction	Social media, dramatic reveals
Plain	convert_to_gif / convert_to_mp4	Standard screen recording, no zoom effects	Bug reports, QA captures

Just Say Where It's Going

You don't need to know viewport sizes or formats. Just tell your AI the destination:

"Record a demo for GitHub README"           → 1280×720 GIF
"Record my app for Instagram Reels"         → 1080×1920 MP4
"Make a TikTok demo of my dashboard"        → 1080×1920 MP4
"Record for YouTube"                        → 1280×720 MP4

Platform	Size	Format	Aspect
github / readme	1280×720	GIF	16:9
youtube / twitter	1280×720	MP4	16:9
reels / tiktok / shorts	1080×1920	MP4	9:16
instagram / linkedin	1080×1080	MP4	1:1
Custom	Any size	Your choice	Any

Quick Start

Node.js ≥ 20 and ffmpeg required.

# Add to Claude Code
claude mcp add pagecast -- npx -y @mcpware/pagecast

# Or run directly
npx @mcpware/pagecast

# Headless mode (no visible browser)
claude mcp add pagecast -- npx -y @mcpware/pagecast --headless

# First time: install browser
npx playwright install chromium

How It Works

You: "Record a demo of my app"
            ↓
AI → record_page(url, platform: "github")
    Opens Chromium (visible) at 1280×720
    Injects cursor highlight + click ripple
            ↓
AI → interact_page(click, type, hover...)
    Each action records bounding box + timestamp
            ↓
AI → stop_recording
    Saves .webm + timeline.json
            ↓
AI → smart_export (tooltip mode)
        or cinematic_export (crop-pan mode)
        or convert_to_gif (plain mode)
            ↓
    Shipping-ready .gif or .mp4

What makes the demo look professional:

• Cursor highlight — red dot tracks the mouse so viewers can follow the action
• Click ripple — visual feedback on every click
• Tooltip overlay — magnified close-up appears near each interaction, with a small arrow pointing toward it
• Cinematic pan — smooth crop transitions between interaction targets with easeInOut curves

MCP Tools

Tool	What it does
record_page	Open a URL, start recording. Auto-injects cursor highlight + click ripple
interact_page	scroll, click, hover, type, press keys, select, navigate, waitForSelector — all captured with bounding boxes
stop_recording	Stop and save .webm + -timeline.json (event timeline with interaction positions)
smart_export	Tooltip overlay — magnified tooltip close-up on each interaction
cinematic_export	Cinematic crop-pan — camera follows the action between interaction targets
convert_to_gif	WebM → optimized GIF (ffmpeg two-pass palette, configurable FPS/width/trim)
convert_to_mp4	WebM → MP4 (H.264, ready for social/sharing/embedding)
record_and_export	All-in-one: record → auto-export to GIF or MP4 based on platform
list_recordings	List all .webm, .gif, and .mp4 files in output directory

Comparison

	Automated	Interactions	Demo zoom	Output	AI-driven	Platform presets
Pagecast	✅	✅ click/type/scroll/hover	✅ tooltip + cinematic	GIF + WebM + MP4	✅	✅
Screen Studio	❌ manual	❌	✅ cursor-based	MP4	❌	❌
AutoZoom	❌ manual	❌	✅ click-based	MP4	❌	❌
Playwright MCP	✅	✅	❌	Raw .webm	Partial	❌
gifcap.dev / Peek / Kap	❌ manual	❌	❌	GIF	❌	❌
VHS (Charmbracelet)	✅ scripted	Terminal only	❌	GIF	❌	❌

Screen Studio and AutoZoom have great zoom — but require manual recording. Pagecast is the only tool where the AI records AND the demo effects are automatic.

Configuration

Setting	Default	Notes
Browser	Headed (visible)	--headless for background
GIF FPS	12	Higher = smoother, larger
GIF width	800px	Height auto-scaled
Tooltip magnify	1.6x	How much the tooltip zooms in
Tooltip size	380px	Size of the tooltip inset
Cinematic zoom	2.5x	How much the camera zooms in
Zoom transition	0.35s	Smoothstep ease-in/out duration
Cursor overlay	On	Red dot + click ripple effect
Video viewport	1280×720	Or use platform parameter
Output dir	./recordings	Override: RECORDING_OUTPUT_DIR

Architecture

src/
├── index.js        # MCP server — 9 tools, platform presets, stdio transport
├── recorder.js     # Playwright browser lifecycle + sessions + event timeline
├── converter.js    # ffmpeg GIF/MP4 + tooltip overlay + cinematic zoom conversion
├── zoom.js         # Zoom engine — chains, panning, tooltip events, FFmpeg expressions
├── tooltip.js      # Tooltip PNG generator (rounded rect + arrow, pure Node.js)
└── remotion/
    ├── ZoomComposition.jsx  # React composition for cinematic zoom
    ├── Root.jsx             # Remotion entry point
    └── render.js            # Remotion CLI wrapper

• Event timeline — every interaction records bounding box + timestamp
• Cursor overlay — red dot + click ripple injected into the page
• Tooltip overlay — magnified close-up in a clean tooltip frame with directional arrow
• Cinematic zoom chains — nearby interactions form chains that zoom in, pan, zoom out
• Thread-safe FFmpeg expressions — crop filters work correctly with multi-threaded encoding
• Headed by default — watch what the AI does
• execFile not exec — safe against shell injection

More from @mcpware

Project	What it does	Install
Instagram MCP	23 Instagram Graph API tools — posts, comments, DMs, stories, analytics	npx @mcpware/instagram-mcp
Claude Code Organizer	Visual dashboard for Claude Code memories, skills, MCP servers, hooks	npx @mcpware/claude-code-organizer
UI Annotator	Hover labels on any web page — AI references elements by name	npx @mcpware/ui-annotator
LogoLoom	AI logo design → SVG → full brand kit export	npx @mcpware/logoloom

License

MIT