vhs

VHS makes terminal GIFs reproducible. Instead of screen-recording your CLI demo and hoping you nail every keystroke, you write a .tape file that scripts the whole session: what gets typed, how long to pause, font size, theme, window dimensions. Run the tape and get a pixel-identical GIF, MP4, or WebM every time. Built by Charm, the team behind Bubble Tea and Gum, and completely free under MIT.

Setup is a brew install plus two dependencies, ttyd and ffmpeg, on your PATH. Their Docker image bundles everything if you would rather skip that. The real win is CI: the companion vhs-action regenerates your README GIFs on every release, so your demo never shows a three-versions-old interface. Tape files live in git next to your code and get reviewed like everything else.

Anyone shipping a CLI tool should use this. Solo, small team, enterprise: same answer. It is free and there is nothing to pay for.

The catch is scope. VHS renders scripted tapes, it does not capture live sessions. Recording a real working session as it happens is a job for asciinema, not this one.