asciinema

asciinema is a command-line tool for recording and live streaming terminal sessions. Unlike traditional screen recording software that creates heavyweight video files, asciinema runs inside the terminal itself and captures output into lightweight .cast files using the asciicast format. This makes recordings highly compressible and perfect for documenting command-line workflows, tutorials, and demonstrations.

The tool offers both recording and live streaming capabilities. You can record terminal sessions locally for later playback, embed recordings on web pages using the asciinema player, or publish them to asciinema.org for sharing. Live streaming allows viewers to watch terminal sessions in real-time, making it valuable for remote collaboration, training, and live coding demonstrations.

asciinema is ideal for developers, system administrators, educators, and anyone who needs to document or share command-line workflows. It runs on GNU/Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD, making it accessible across Unix-like systems. The lightweight recording format and integration with web players make it particularly well-suited for documentation, tutorials, and technical presentations where traditional video would be overkill.

Installation

# via Cargo
cargo install --locked --git https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema