Mean

Changelog

Every release, newest first.

0.3.45

  • When an agent records or captures for the first time, the command now says it is waiting for your permission instead of stopping silently, and keeps waiting until you answer.
  • When the app that launched the command has no Screen Recording permission, the command names it and says where to grant it.

0.3.44

  • The export card now shows the phases, paints and measurements an agent marked on a recording: a bar of phases under the frames, a tick on each painted frame, and a table of measurements on the cover.
  • An agent's tools can mark phases, paints and measurements directly, and the Markdown you copy from History carries them too.

0.3.43

  • An agent can now mark time on a recording: phases such as loading or typing, the frames where something painted, and measurements with the frames that prove them. The marks stay with the recording and are reported alongside the frames.
  • Inspecting a recording says which phase each frame falls in and when a phase was idle, so a quiet stretch has an explanation.
  • A recording keeps the agent's sense of time, so a measurement made during a session is not lost when the conversation ends.

0.3.42

  • Every change on screen in a recording now says which element it touched, and how much of the change fell inside it, so an agent reading a timeline can tell a click on Save from a redraw of the toolbar around it.
  • Comparing two recordings says the same for each side of every difference.
  • When the screen was read late or not at all for a scene, the row says so instead of guessing.

0.3.41

  • Every element on screen keeps one name from scene to scene of a recording, so an agent can follow a button, a row or a field through a session instead of matching it again at every step.
  • Each element says how its name was kept: by the app's own accessibility handle, by the web page's source, or by its place on screen when nothing better was available.
  • Older recordings gain the same names the first time they are edited.
  • The command line answers faster: every command starts a little sooner.

0.3.40

  • A recording now carries what was on screen for every scene, not only the frame where it was frozen: as the screen settles into a new state, Mean reads the elements again, so an agent can name what was on screen at any moment, and timelines show the scene a frame belongs to.
  • Each scene says when its elements were read and whether the read was clean, late, or skipped under load, so an agent knows how far to trust it.
  • Web pages inside browser windows are found reliably, including right after the browser starts, where earlier captures could miss the page.
  • Asking which elements were on screen at a moment of a recording is now quick, however long the recording: each scene's elements are kept in their own table rather than inside one large document, and older recordings gain the same the first time they are edited.
  • A video or voice cover recorded on a still is kept again; since 0.3.0 it could be lost when the session was finished.
  • Video covers now play in every browser.
  • Keyboard shortcuts work reliably again: the shortcut recorder shows the one you already set, and shortcuts keep working while a menu is open.
  • When an agent records through the command line, the recording pill on screen now looks the same as the one you see when you record yourself.

0.3.39

  • When an agent asks to see your screen, Always Allow now works even if the agent gave no name: Mean remembers the app the request came from, and the panel says exactly what it is granting.
  • Agents connected over MCP are remembered by their client name, so a standing permission no longer needs any setup on their side.

0.3.38

  • Agents can now see many frames of a recording in one labelled image: mean inspect --sheet and mean frame --sheet lay the frames out as a contact sheet, with the frame number and time under each tile.
  • Every kept frame of a recording now records where the screen changed and how much, so an agent can crop straight to the change; older recordings get the same on request.

0.3.37

  • Buttons show their hover and pressed state clearly again on macOS 27, including the History panel's settings and Annotate controls.
  • The History panel's shadow is no longer cut off at its edges.

0.3.36

  • Smart Select matches the page again in Safari, Chromium browsers and TinyWeb on macOS 27, so annotations get their component and source back; the page is identified by what is on screen, and the window title is used only to break a tie.
  • An annotation on page text now takes the page's own words rather than a reading of the pixels, so a heading is never labelled with a misspelling the screen does not show.
  • The developer doctor (mean dev doctor dom) now says how far the accessibility sample got and where the page title came from.

0.2.23

  • Agent commands can now search a recording's on-screen elements by label or by tapping a point on the canvas, instead of pulling the entire element list.

0.2.22

  • Annotations now render correctly behind floating panels, menus, and Quick Look windows that overlap them, and this stays correct even after you save and reopen a screenshot.
  • Marks placed with Smart Select stay attached to the window they belong to, even when they extend under a neighboring window.
  • A note stays fully visible while you're writing it, instead of fading out.
  • The recording timeline holds a steady width instead of stretching or bouncing at its edges.
  • Scrolling over the recording timeline while live now steps you back into review.
  • Pausing a recording highlights the frame you paused on, instead of the live position.
  • Selecting a frame in the recording timeline is more reliable.
  • The Settings and Onboarding windows are now tracked correctly if opened or closed while a recording is in progress.

0.2.21

  • Notate is now Mean — the command line tool is now mean, and your recordings, models, and settings carry over automatically on first launch.
  • Record the screen over time and annotate as you go: draw on a held frame while recording, or step back through the timeline mid-take, then save the whole take as one recording.
  • Smart Select now works in recordings, live on the held frame and on every frame once you are reviewing.
  • The recording timeline adds scrub previews, marks for duplicate frames, jump-to-next-comment stepping, and a live preview as you scrub.
  • Recordings save as .mean files, and mean inspect now gives a leaner, more focused report for agents.
  • Stopping a recording opens review instantly; the file finishes saving in the background.
  • Export cards now drop into place at full size instead of zooming in.
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when text recognition was interrupted mid-scan.
  • Fixed stray tooltips appearing over hidden controls in the recording bar.

0.2.20

  • Right-click any window in a captured scene to bring it forward, send it to the back, or remove it — with undo and instant keyboard shortcuts.
  • Reordering windows in a scene is now instant and buttery smooth, and exports always match what's on screen.
  • Small windows and dialogs can now be picked out and rearranged too, not just full-size windows.
  • Windows brought forward keep their natural drop shadow and stay crisp on mixed-resolution display setups.
  • Pins fade to grey when their window is sent behind another.
  • Reopening a saved session now restores every window arrangement exactly as you left it.
  • Fixed a stutter when reopening a session while the history panel was closing.
  • Hover highlights on toolbar buttons no longer wash out their glass edges.

0.2.19

  • Fixed an issue where annotating a previously exported recording could lose its crop and re-save the full screen instead.
  • Reopening a recording now lands on the exact frame you clicked, with its notes intact.
  • Fixed an issue where clicking Annotate right after exporting could open an incomplete session.
  • Spelling errors are now underlined while typing a note.
  • Smart Select highlights now track the pointer instantly, and no longer flash the wrong element when moving between neighbors.
  • Comment previews now appear beside their pin, and editing a note opens right where its preview was.
  • The export card stack now tidies itself away after a few quiet minutes, with a Show Last Session option to bring it back.
  • Reduced memory use during long sessions.

0.2.18

  • Reduced memory use while stepping through a recorded clip; scrubbing no longer builds up memory over a long session.
  • Export previews now release their memory as soon as they're saved, cutting memory use substantially for large exports, and fixed a rare issue where quickly reopening the last export could show stale content.
  • History thumbnails no longer accumulate without limit while scrolling through a long history.
  • Background smart detection now frees up memory shortly after you stop using it, and more fully after several idle minutes.

0.2.17

  • Fixed a memory buildup in the on-screen element detection engine that could grow to several gigabytes during long sessions.
  • The highlight shown around detected on-screen elements now adjusts its color when the underlying content is a similar shade, so it stays visible instead of blending in.

0.2.16

  • Added Smart Select: click the new toolbar tool (or press S) to automatically detect and box UI elements, windows, or text instead of drawing selections by hand; shift-drag to merge elements, scroll to resize, or hover a window's edge to select the whole window.
  • Smart Select is noticeably faster at recognizing what's on screen.
  • Setup now asks for Accessibility permission so Smart Select can read what's on your screen, and downloads an additional small model needed for it, with a clearer message if that download needs to retry in the background.
  • Fixed annotation outlines clipping the tops of letters like "l" and "h"; shapes now draw slightly outside the text they frame, and stroke lines are a touch thinner.
  • Comment cards no longer overlap the selection they're attached to, and the spacing between a selection and its comment has been refined.
  • Fixed clicking near a screenshot/export card sometimes missing the desktop underneath; stale export cards now clear automatically when a new session starts, and dropping one onto its target dismisses it instead of bouncing back.
  • The recording toolbar's exit button now reads "Save," shows a spinner only while it's actually saving, and no longer shows a stray icon while idle.
  • Fixed the microphone silently dropping out when switching input devices (e.g., connecting AirPods mid-recording); it now retries reconnecting and tells you if it can't.

0.2.15

  • Faster saving and exporting of recordings, especially ones with several voice notes finishing transcription around the same time.
  • Numbered annotation notes with multiple paragraphs now stay properly indented under their number in exported text and images, instead of the second paragraph drifting to the left margin.
  • Exported annotation panels for multi-frame recordings now show which frame they belong to, with a time stamp, instead of a generic "Annotations" label.

0.2.14

  • Onboarding now offers to install Skills — guides that give your AI agents extra context — right alongside the command line tool setup.
  • Minor spacing polish in the new session screen for a cleaner look.

0.2.13

  • The session panel can now be dragged to either side of the screen and stays docked there — it opens on the left by default.
  • The session panel has new corner buttons for hiding it or moving it to the other side, and double-clicking a note opens it for editing.
  • Fixed a glitch where the video would visibly jump when leaving Picture-in-Picture.
  • Picture-in-Picture now shows a single centered progress indicator while a recording finishes processing, and its button fits its corner better.
  • New sessions now open on the recording view instead of the notes list.
  • The What's New window no longer pops up over onboarding or repair screens — it waits until they're finished.
  • Refined spacing and alignment across the session panel and voice recordings for a more consistent look.

0.2.12

  • Voice and video recordings can now continue in a small floating window if you close the panel or press Esc, so the take keeps going while you do something else.
  • The floating recording window shows a live waveform and transcript for voice, or a camera preview for video, with buttons to bring it back or finish.
  • Fixed the "jump to live" control showing up in the full-size transcript view even when there was nothing to scroll.
  • Tightened the spacing above the copy button in the playback view.
  • The waveform during recording now flows smoothly instead of stepping.

0.2.11

  • The recording timeline now supports press-and-drag scrubbing anywhere on the strip, so you can slide through frames like a playhead instead of only clicking to jump.
  • The panel and pin-mode buttons now show what tapping them will do next, with a smooth icon swap instead of a static state icon.
  • Recording a video or voice cover now waits for the microphone to actually start before the camera appears and the clock begins, so your first words are never lost; Save stays dimmed until there's something to save.
  • New keyboard shortcuts (Control-V/A/W) start a video, audio, or written cover from anywhere in a session, without opening the cover panel first.
  • Clicking an annotation in the session panel now opens its card right at the pin, instead of requiring a double-click.
  • A new Clipboard setting lets you choose whether copying a session puts a ready-to-run agent prompt or plain markdown text on the clipboard.
  • The setup step for enabling automation was redesigned to match the rest of onboarding, and setup now waits until the on-device model finishes downloading before letting you continue.
  • Inspecting a recorded session with a video cover is noticeably faster.