README.md

ScreenshotMAX GitHub Action

This GitHub Action allows developers to securely call the ScreenshotMAX API to render websites as screenshots. It automatically generates an HMAC SHA256 signature, sends the request with your querystring, and saves the response as an artifact.

✅ Useful for visual testing, website archiving, monitoring, reporting, and automation pipelines.

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🔧 Inputs

Name	Required	Description
access_key	✅	Your ScreenshotMAX public API access key
secret_key	✅	Your ScreenshotMAX secret API key (used for signature)
querystring	✅	The full query string for the API call (e.g. url=https://example.com&format=png)

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How Signature Works

To ensure secure API access, this action generates a signature like this:

signature = HMAC_SHA256(raw_string = access_key={access_key}&{querystring}, key = secret_key )

Example:

• access_key: abc123
• querystring: url=https://example.com&format=png
• raw_string: access_key=abc123&url=https://example.com&format=png
• signature = HMAC_SHA256(raw_string, secret_key)

This signature is then appended to the request as an additional parameter:
...&signature=YOUR_SIGNATURE

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Output

If the API call succeeds (HTTP 200), the screenshot is saved locally as: output.png | output.jpg | ...

The filename depends on the format= in your querystring.

The file is then uploaded as a GitHub Actions artifact.

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Example Usage

name: Take Website Screenshot

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      access_key:
        required: true
        type: string
      secret_key:
        required: true
        type: string
      querystring:
        required: true
        type: string

jobs:
  screenshot:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Run ScreenshotMAX
        uses: your-org/screenshotmax-action@v1
        with:
          access_key: ${{ github.event.inputs.access_key }}
          secret_key: ${{ github.event.inputs.secret_key }}
          querystring: ${{ github.event.inputs.querystring }}

      - name: Upload result
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: screenshot
          path: output.*