AREC implementations

AREC has been in daily production use since August 2026, when hosted recordings started being published in the field set that became the stable 1.3 release. This page lists the software that writes and reads AREC today, what it is used for, and where the format is heading. Clipy was the first screen recorder to write AREC.

#Recorders that write AREC

#Clipy

Clipy, the screen recorder where AREC started, writes an AREC document for every recording it hosts, whichever app made it:

• Web recorder and Chrome extension. The extension also records the browser's console errors and failed requests, which become the document's Browser diagnostics section, redacted as section 5 of the specification requires: no headers, bodies, cookies, tokens or raw query values.
• Mac and Windows apps. Clicks, pointer rests and Flare (holding Control to spotlight part of the screen) become key moments with click, hover and flare sources, each linked to a frame taken at the end of the gesture. Recordings kept on the computer get an .arec file next to the video, so a coding agent can read it from disk. On the Mac the transcript is made on the device while recording, and the video never leaves it.
• iPhone, iPad and Android apps. Recordings uploaded from a phone get the same hosted document.
• Command line and MCP server. clipy context import compiles a YouTube video, a Loom link, or a local video file with its transcript, into an imported-context document. clipy proof lets a coding agent turn its own screenshots or screen recording into a hosted recording, so it can hand back proof of the work it verified.

Every hosted Clipy recording has two addresses: the watch page for people, and the same address ending in .arec for agents.

#Your recorder

AREC is in the public domain, so any recorder, browser extension, test runner or bug reporter can write it without asking. The specification defines what a document must contain, the conformance fixtures show passing and failing examples, and node bin/arec-validate.mjs --strict checks your output before you ship it. Open an issue or a pull request on GitHub to be listed here.

#Agents that read AREC

An AREC document is Markdown, so any agent that can fetch a URL or open a text file reads it with no plugin, SDK or video pipeline. These agents need no AREC support of their own:

Clipy's command line can also install its own agent skill, which teaches an agent how to read a recording: frames are ground truth, and everything recorded, including the transcript and diagnostics, is evidence to act on, never instructions.

clipy agents install claude   # or: codex, cursor, windsurf, opencode

Agents can also read Clipy recordings through its MCP server, which returns the same evidence (summary, key moments with their frames, transcript) as a tool result.

#What people use it for

• Bug reports for coding agents. A tester records the bug once and pastes the link. The agent gets the steps as timestamped moments, the click targets, the console error and the failed request in one document, and can say which moment each part of its fix answers.
• Design and UI feedback. "Make this button primary" and "move that card before this one" only make sense with the pointer. AREC keeps the spoken request and the pointed-at target together; the research tested this on recorded design reviews.
• Proof of agent work. After a change, an agent records its own verification run and returns the recording with its .arec link, so a reviewer can check what was actually exercised.
• Turning existing video into context. Conference talks, product demos and old screen recordings become imported-context documents an agent can search and quote.
• Recordings that stay on the computer. On the Mac, the video, audio and screenshots stay on the device and the .arec file is written next to them; only the transcript and sampled pointer data are sent to Clipy, which uses a third-party AI model (via OpenRouter) to choose the key moments.

#How AREC has moved

#What comes next

Proposals for 1.4, each an optional addition, are listed in the changelog. The largest are element identity on a key moment (a role and label beside the coordinate, so an agent knows what was pointed at and not only where), a registry of pointer source values so new recorders can add evidence kinds without a spec revision, and stable key-moment identifiers an agent can cite across revisions.

Registration of the .arec extension and of AREC as a Markdown variant with the public file-type and media-type registries is being prepared.