Terminal session recorder and the best companion of asciinema.org.

asciinema is available in repositories of most popular package managers on Mac OS X, Linux and FreeBSD. Look for package named asciinema. See the list of available packages.

To build asciinema from source you need to have Go development toolchain installed.

You can use go get to fetch the source, build and install asciinema at $GOPATH/bin/asciinema in one go:

go get github.com/asciinema/asciinema

Download the source code into your $GOPATH:

mkdir -p $GOPATH/src/github.com/asciinema
git clone https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema.git $GOPATH/src/github.com/asciinema/asciinema

Build the binary:

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/asciinema/asciinema
make build

This will produce asciinema binary at $GOPATH/src/github.com/asciinema/asciinema/bin/asciinema.

To install it system wide (to /usr/local):

sudo make install

If you want to install it in other location:

PREFIX=/the/prefix make install

asciinema is composed of multiple commands, similar to git, apt-get or brew.

When you run asciinema with no arguments help message is displayed, listing all available commands with their options.

Record terminal session.

This is the single most important command in asciinema, since it is how you utilize this tool's main job.

By running asciinema rec [filename] you start a new recording session. The command (process) that is recorded can be specified with -c option (see below), and defaults to $SHELL which is what you want in most cases.

Recording finishes when you exit the shell (hit Ctrl+D or type exit). If the recorded process is not a shell then recording finishes when the process exits.

If the filename argument is given then the resulting recording (called asciicast) is saved to a local file. It can later be replayed with asciinema play <filename> and/or uploaded to asciinema.org with asciinema upload <filename>. If the filename argument is omitted then (after asking for confirmation) the resulting asciicast is uploaded to asciinema.org for further playback in a web browser.

ASCIINEMA_REC=1 is added to recorded process environment variables. This can be used by your shell's config file (.bashrc, .zshrc) to alter the prompt or play a sound when shell is being recorded.

Available options:

• -c, --command=<command> - Specify command to record, defaults to $SHELL
• -t, --title=<title> - Specify the title of the asciicast
• -w, --max-wait=<sec> - Reduce recorded terminal inactivity to max seconds
• -y, --yes - Answer "yes" to all prompts (e.g. upload confirmation)
• -q, --quiet - Be quiet, suppress all notices/warnings (implies -y)

Replay recorded asciicast in a terminal.

This command replays given asciicast (as recorded by rec command) directly in your terminal.

When "-" is passed as a filename the asciicast is read from stdin. For example:

curl -sL https://asciinema.org/a/21310.json | asciinema play -

Available options:

• -w, --max-wait=<sec> - Reduce replayed terminal inactivity to max seconds

NOTE: it is recommended to run asciinema play in a terminal of dimensions not smaller than the one used for recording as there's no "transcoding" of control sequences for new terminal size.

Upload recorded asciicast to asciinema.org site.

This command uploads given asciicast (as recorded by rec command) to asciinema.org for further playback in a web browser.

asciinema rec demo.json + asciinema play demo.json + asciinema upload demo.json is a nice combo for when you want to review an asciicast before publishing it on asciinema.org.

Assign local API token to asciinema.org account.

On every machine you install asciinema recorder, you get a new, unique API token. This command connects this local token with your asciinema.org account, and links all asciicasts recorded on this machine with the account.

This command displays the URL you should open in your web browser. If you never logged in to asciinema.org then your account will be created when opening the URL.

NOTE: it is necessary to do this if you want to edit or delete your recordings on asciinema.org.

You can synchronize your config file (which keeps the API token) across the machines but that's not necessary. You can assign new tokens to your account from as many machines as you want.

asciinema uses a config file to keep API token and user settings. In most cases the location of this file is $HOME/.config/asciinema/config.

When you first run asciinema, local API token is generated and saved in the file (unless the file already exists). It looks like this:

[api]
token = d5a2dce4-173f-45b2-a405-ac33d7b70c5f

There are several options you can set in this file. Here's a config with all available options set:

[api]
token = d5a2dce4-173f-45b2-a405-ac33d7b70c5f
url = https://asciinema.example.com

[record]
command = /bin/bash -l
maxwait = 2
yes = true

[play]
maxwait = 1

The options in [api] section are related to API location and authentication. To tell asciinema recorder to use your own asciinema site instance rather than the default one (asciinema.org), you can set url option. API URL can also be passed via ASCIINEMA_API_URL environment variable.

The options in [record] and [play] sections have the same meaning as the options you pass to asciinema rec/asciinema play command. If you happen to often use either -c, -w or -y with these commands then consider saving it as a default in the config file.

In fact, the following locations are checked for the presence of the config file (in the given order):

• $ASCIINEMA_CONFIG_HOME/config - if you have set $ASCIINEMA_CONFIG_HOME
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/asciinema/config - on Linux, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME usually points to $HOME/.config/
• $HOME/.config/asciinema/config - in most cases it's here
• $HOME/.asciinema/config - created by asciinema versions prior to 1.1

The first one which is found is used.

If you want to contribute to this project check out Contributing page.

Developed with passion by Marcin Kulik and great open source contributors

Copyright © 2011-2015 Marcin Kulik.

All code is licensed under the GPL, v3 or later. See LICENSE file for details.