ttyrec

To record ONLY the text that appears in the TTY (not a video, not pixels — just the characters printed to the terminal), the correct tools are:

✅ 1. Best and simplest: ttyrec

This records everything printed to the TTY (including control sequences, colors).

Install:

sudo pacman -S ttyrec

Record:

ttyrec mysession.tty

Do your work normally.

Stop:

Press Ctrl+D or run:

exit

Replay:

ttyplay mysession.tty

This is the closest thing to “OBS for pure text TTY”.

✅ 2. More modern + web-friendly: asciinema

This records your terminal session as text, extremely efficient.

Install:

sudo pacman -S asciinema

Record:

asciinema rec session.cast

Stop:

Ctrl+D

Replay:

asciinema play session.cast

Pros:

  • Can rewind, pause, speed up
  • Perfect fidelity of text + colors
  • Very small files (KB)
  • Editable

✅ 3. Universal method: script

Built into every Linux.

Start recording:

script -t 2> timing.log text.log

Do your TTY work.

Stop:

Ctrl+D

Replay with timing:

scriptreplay timing.log text.log

Which one should you use?

Tool Records text? Records timing? Easy replay? Output size
ttyrec ✔ ✔ ✔ small
asciinema ✔ ✔ ✔ (best) tiny
script ✔ ✔ ✔ small

⚠ Important:

These tools record only what the shell prints.

They do NOT record screen redraws from graphical TUI apps in raw framebuffer mode (like nvim in raw console) unless the app prints escape sequences.

But they DO correctly record:

  • bash/zsh/fish output
  • commands
  • ncurses apps (htop, vim, etc.)
  • colors
  • cursor movement

Everything needed to replay the TTY experience.

If you want, I can also show:

  • how to convert a ttyrec to video using ffmpeg
  • how to upload and embed terminal recordings
  • how to capture TTY of another session (for demos)

Just tell me.