PromoShot
Headless Linux · v0.2.1

Same pixels. No GPU. No watermark.

A GPU-less Linux box runs the compositor the apps ship — wgpu on lavapipe, ffmpeg as a subprocess. CLI overlay is None. The Mac app free tier is watermarked; that is an app policy, not the engine's.

LinuxSmoke still at 5.5 seconds, caption Same pixels as the Mac?

LinuxSmoke.promo at 5.5 s — 1280×720, rendered on lavapipe. Caption asks the question. Kitchen-sink handshake: clip + audio, image, palette, easing, a waiting keyframe.

Watermark: promo-cli sets ExportSettings.overlay = None — “The CLI is the oracle and renders clean; watermark policy is the apps' concern.” Free exports through the Mac app carry the PromoShot watermark. CI output is clean.

One-liner from GitHub Releases

v0.2.1 ships promo + promoshot-mcp as linux-x64 and macos-arm64 tarballs. No Rust toolchain required.

# Linux x64
curl -fsSL -o promoshot.tar.gz \
  https://github.com/GarAlex/promoshot/releases/download/v0.2.1/promoshot-v0.2.1-linux-x64.tar.gz
tar -xzf promoshot.tar.gz
install -m 0755 promo promoshot-mcp ~/.local/bin/

# macOS Apple silicon
curl -fsSL -o promoshot.tar.gz \
  https://github.com/GarAlex/promoshot/releases/download/v0.2.1/promoshot-v0.2.1-macos-arm64.tar.gz
tar -xzf promoshot.tar.gz
install -m 0755 promo promoshot-mcp ~/.local/bin/

promo validate /ABS/PATH/Promo/LinuxSmoke.promo --json
promo still    /ABS/PATH/Promo/LinuxSmoke.promo --time 5.5 --json

Releases: github.com/GarAlex/promoshot/releases. Point MCP at the same binaries — see /mcp.

Docker

The image is the whole render environment: server, CLI, ffmpeg, lavapipe, fonts. A client needs nothing on the host but Docker. Examples are baked in — prove it with no mount by rendering /usr/local/share/promoshot/examples/ProductCard.promo.

docker pull ghcr.io/garalex/promoshot-mcp
# or, from the repo:
docker build -t promoshot-mcp .
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "promoshot": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm",
        "-v", "/ABS/PATH/Promo:/projects",
        "promoshot-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

PROMOSHOT_WORKSPACE=/projects. Registry manifest: server.json → ghcr.io/garalex/promoshot-mcp.

What a headless box needs

  • ffmpeg / ffprobe on PATH (video)
  • mesa-vulkan-drivers + libvulkan1 — lavapipe ICD
  • Fonts: fonts-liberation, fonts-dejavu-core
  • Building from source: rustc 1.98+ (distro 1.85 is too old for icu_*/image)
# wgpu: Backends::PRIMARY, HighPerformance, force_fallback_adapter=false
# On Linux that is Vulkan → lavapipe if there is no GPU.

cargo build --release -p promo-cli -p promoshot-mcp
# binaries: target/release/promo   target/release/promoshot-mcp

promoshot-mcp --workspace /ABS/PATH/Promo --root /ABS/PATH/Promo

Validate before render. ok means it will render. Inspect lists layer ids: promo inspect /ABS/PATH/Promo/LinuxSmoke.promo --json(flag after the path).

If wgpu / lavapipe fails

Install mesa-vulkan-drivers + libvulkan1 and re-check vulkaninfo --summary for llvmpipe.GpuContext does not set force_fallback_adapter. Without an adapter the CLI errors no GPU adapter available — do not fake screenshots.

Headless MCP → · Product card →