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name: techsmith-upgrade-migration description: >- Upgrade Snagit or Camtasia with entitlement checks, immutable backups, canaries, project-format boundaries, and reversible endpoint rollout. Use when changing product versions or retiring legacy media. Trigger with "upgrade TechSmith", "migrate Camtasia project", or "convert Snagit library". argument-hint: "[product] [source-version] [target-version]" allowed-tools: Read, Glob, Grep, WebFetch, Write, Edit version: 1.6.0 author: Jeremy Longshore jeremy@intentsolutions.io license: MIT tags:

• desktop-automation
• techsmith
• migration model: inherit effort: medium compatibility: Designed for Claude Code; TechSmith product execution requires an approved Windows or macOS desktop as documented

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TechSmith Versioned Upgrade and Media Migration

Overview

This skill treats application upgrade and content conversion as separate transactions. It preserves original libraries/projects, pins the tools needed for legacy formats, validates copies on a canary, and never assumes backward compatibility.

Prerequisites

• Source and target product/version, platform, license eligibility, and installer hashes
• Immutable backup of Snagit library or standalone/zipped Camtasia projects plus checksums
• Representative canary assets and acceptance criteria
• Rollback endpoint/package and owners for content conversion

Tool Discipline

Use Read, Glob, and Grep to inspect local scripts, manifests, logs, and tests. Use WebFetch only for current primary TechSmith documentation. Use Write or Edit only after confirming the target repository file and approval boundary.

Current Contract

• Camtasia projects are not backward-compatible; collaborators must align on the same version.
• Camtasia 2020+ does not open CAMPROJ or CAMREC directly; CAMPROJ requires an intermediate 9/2018/2019 save to TSCPROJ, while CAMREC must be produced in an older version.
• Snagit 2022 introduced SNAGX; export to standard formats while a usable Snagit entitlement is available when long-term portability is required.
• Never overwrite originals during canary conversion or uninstall user data as part of application rollback.

Licensing and Authentication

TechSmith desktop activation is not API authentication. Resolve individual sign-in versus business-key or approved offline activation before execution. Redact all keys, account identifiers, activation artifacts, and sensitive endpoint details.

Instructions

1. Inventory endpoints, entitlements, integrations, COM clients, project/library formats, share outputs, and collaborators.
2. Back up original content immutably, record hashes, and verify restore before installing the target version.
3. Read target release and deployment guidance; identify removed exporter, executable, codec, project, and policy changes.
4. Upgrade one canary endpoint and test launch, activation, COM creation, recorder discovery, representative open/edit/export, and rollback.
5. Convert copies through the documented intermediate versions or batch-export path; retain original-to-result mapping and validation.
6. Promote by endpoint ring, monitor failures, and retire legacy tooling only after recovery and audit windows expire.

Approval Boundaries

Do not bulk-convert the only copy, open a project in a newer version before preserving a rollback copy, or assume a subscription unlocks every historical version.

Output

Return source/target matrix, entitlement result, backup and restore evidence, canary tests, conversion ledger, rollback result, promotion decision, and retained originals.

Error Handling

Condition	Response
Historical version unavailable	Pause that content cohort and obtain an authorized conversion workstation or support path.
Project fails in target	Restore the canary copy and classify version, media, font, or codec cause.
Output validation differs	Reject the conversion and keep the original authoritative.
Rollback loses library/project data	Stop rollout and redesign data preservation separately from app removal.

Examples

The example below shows the minimum redacted evidence expected from a successful invocation of this operator workflow.

product=Camtasia; source=2019-camproj; bridge=2019-tscproj; target=2026; originals=retained; canary=pass

Resources

• Skill-specific official documentation
• Legacy Camtasia file migration
• Export a Snagit library