asciinema

[asciinema] allows you to record and post a terminal session. It records the commands that you enter in a shell and the output the command produces. asciinema is already installed in the GitHub Codespaces image. You can also [install asciinema] on Linux/WSL/macOS.

There are two versions of asciinema. Version 2 was the first one installed in GitHub Codespaces. This has been replaced by Version 3, which works differently. First, verify which version you are running:

The following directions apply to version 3 only (not version 2).

asciinema is relatively straightforward to use. To start:

View the demo at [asciinema]. Once you are done, you will need to upload the file:

This will give you a URL to test in a browser, and possibly turn in as part of an assignment.

Installation

For GitHub Codespaces asciinema version 3 is already installed, but you may need to start a new codespace. For macOS, using brew install asciinema will install version 3.

For Linux/WSL, Ubuntu 24.04 does not provide a version 3 package of asciinema. The changes in version 3 are considered breaking changes. Best suggestion is to directly download and install the executable. The following assumes that you are on x86, adjust if you are on ARM.

  1. Uninstall asciinema:

  2. Download the executable into /usr/local/bin

  3. Make it executable

  4. Clear the bash cached command paths

  5. Verify you now have version 3