democtl

democtl records terminal sessions and converts them into SVG animations and videos. It creates visual demos of terminal interactions for documentation and presentations.

The tool is lightweight and standalone with no external dependencies. Just install and start recording, then export to SVG animations.

Key Features

• Record terminal sessions with .demo files that simulate typing
• No external dependencies required like browsers or runtimes
• Written in Go for cross-platform compatibility
• Compatible with asciinema .cast format
• Export to multiple formats
  • SVG animations (no external dependencies)
  • MP4, GIF and WebM videos (with ffmpeg)

Demo

Installation

go install github.com/wzshiming/democtl/cmd/democtl@latest

Usage

Record terminal commands to cast file.

democtl record --input ./testdata/base.demo --output ./testdata/base.cast

Convert cast file to svg file.

democtl svg --input ./testdata/base.cast --output ./testdata/base.svg

Convert cast file to video file.

democtl mp4 --input ./testdata/base.cast --output ./testdata/base.mp4

Inspiration

Originally written in shell script, democtl has been rewritten in Go for better maintainability and cross-platform support.

• The old version
• asciinema
• playpty
• svg-term-cli
• @wzshiming/svg-to-video

License

Licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for the full license text.