Claude Snip Helper

📸 Instantly save screenshots and paste them into Claude CLI on Windows with Ctrl + V, without disrupting your normal clipboard usage.

This lightweight tool listens for Win + Shift + S snips (via the Windows Snipping Tool), and when you left-click inside VS Code, it saves the screenshot as a .png file and copies the file path to your clipboard.

Perfect for quickly pasting images into Claude CLI or any tool that supports path-based image input.

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✅ Features

• 🪟 Windows only (uses Windows clipboard + GUI APIs)
• 💬 Designed for Claude CLI
• 🖱️ Activates when clicking in VS Code
• 🧠 Ignores synthetic clicks after snipping
• 📋 Clipboard-friendly: if you paste the image in another app first, it won’t overwrite the clipboard
• 🔒 Prevents multiple instances using a local TCP lock

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💡 How It Works

1. Press Win + Shift + S to take a screenshot (snip)
2. Left-click inside VS Code
3. The image is saved to Pictures\Screenshots
4. The file path is copied to your clipboard
5. You can now paste (Ctrl + V) into Claude CLI

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📦 Installation

1. Clone the repo: git clone https://github.com/jacobhallgren/claude-snip-helper.git cd claude-snip-helper

2. Install required Python packages: pip install -r requirements.txt

3. python claude_snip_helper.py python claude_snip_helper.py

🎁 Bonus

Start automatically

⚙️ Auto-Start at Login (via Windows Task Scheduler)

To make Claude Snip Helper run automatically every time you log into Windows, you can configure it using Task Scheduler. This ensures the script runs silently in the background without needing to start it manually.

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✅ Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Open Task Scheduler

• Press Win + S, search for Task Scheduler, and open it.

2. Create a New Task

• Click "Create Task" in the right panel (not "Basic Task").
• Name it something like: Start Claude Snip Helper

3. General Tab

• Use your username under "When running the task..."
• Check:
• ✅ “Run only when user is logged on”
• ✅ “Run with highest privileges”
• Configure for: Windows 10 or Windows 11

4. Triggers Tab

• Click "New..."
• Begin the task: At log on
• Choose:
• ✅ “Any user” (or choose your username)
• ✅ Enable the trigger
• You can optionally set a delay (e.g., 15 minutes)

5. Actions Tab

• Click "New..."
• Action: Start a program
• Program/script: path to pythonw.exe
  Example: C:\Program Files\Python312\pythonw.exe

Add arguments: full path to your script
Example: "C:\Users\YourName\Documents\Claude-Snip-Helper\claude_snip_helper.py"

6. Conditions & Settings Tabs

• Leave defaults unless you want to adjust advanced behavior (e.g., stop after 3 days)

✅ Done!

Click OK to save the task.

Now, your script will launch silently each time you log in to Windows. It will wait for Win + Shift + S snips and help you paste screenshots into Claude CLI with zero manual setup.