wf-recorder

Recipe card from the charly-selkies plugin (Images — the deployable catalog).

wf-recorder – Wayland screen recorder

Candy Properties

Property	Value
Install files	`charly.yml` (packages only)
Depends	none

Packages

RPM: wf-recorder

What It Does

Native Wayland screen recorder for wlroots-based compositors (sway, labwc, etc.). Captures frames via the wlr-screencopy protocol and encodes to MP4/MKV using system ffmpeg. Supports audio capture with --audio.

Note: Does NOT work on selkies-desktop — use wl-record-pixelflux instead (labwc nested in pixelflux can’t deliver screencopy frames).

Usage

# a box composing this candy — the candy list is inline
my-box:
  candy:
    base: fedora
    candy: [wf-recorder]

CLI Usage

# Direct usage (inside container)
wf-recorder -f output.mp4              # Record to MP4
wf-recorder -f output.mp4 --audio      # With audio
wf-recorder -f output.mp4 -r 60        # 60fps
# Stop with Ctrl-C

Integration with the `record:` check verb

Author record: plan steps (the declarative verb served out-of-process by candy/plugin-record — no host charly check subcommand for it) and run them with charly check live sway-browser-vnc --filter record. A record: start step with record_mode: desktop auto-detects wf-recorder; desktop interaction is driven with the wl:/cdp: verbs (which keep their host subcommands); record: stop + artifact: copies the .mp4 out:

plan:
  - check: a desktop recording starts
    record:
      method: start
      record_name: demo
      record_mode: desktop
    context: [deploy]
  - check: the desktop recording is captured
    record:
      method: stop
      record_name: demo
      artifact: demo.mp4
      artifact_min_bytes: 10000
    context: [deploy]

Included In

sway-desktop metalayer (and all boxes using sway-desktop-vnc)

Used In Boxes

/charly-selkies:sway-browser-vnc (via sway-desktop metalayer)

Cross-References

/charly-check:record — the record: check verb (record_mode: desktop) auto-detects wf-recorder
/charly-selkies:wl-record-pixelflux — Alternative for selkies-desktop (pixelflux pipeline)
/charly-selkies:wl-screenshot-grim — Screenshot companion (same wlr-screencopy protocol)
/charly-selkies:sway-desktop — Parent metalayer

When to Use This Skill

Use when the user asks about:

Desktop video recording on sway
wf-recorder in containers
The wf-recorder candy

/charly-image:layer — candy authoring reference (charly.yml schema, run:/check: step verbs, service declarations)
/charly-check:check — declarative testing (check: block, charly check box, charly check live)