Frequently Asked Questions

How is it pronounced?

[as-kee-nuh-muh].

The word “asciinema” is a combination of English “ASCII” and Ancient Greek “κίνημα” (kínēma, “movement”).

Why am I getting `command not found` at the begining of the recording session?

When recording asciinema starts new shell instance (as indicated by $SHELL environment variable) by default. It invokes exec $SHELL, which in most cases translates to exec /bin/bash or exec /bin/zsh. This means the shell runs as an "interactive shell", but not as a "login shell".

If you have functions and/or other shell configuration defined in either .bash_profile, .zprofile or .profile file they are not loaded unless the shell is started as a login shell.

Some terminal emulators do that (passing "-l" option to the shell command-line), some don't. asciinema doesn't.

Worry not, you have several options. You can:

move this part of configuration to .bashrc/.zshrc,
record with asciinema rec -c "/bin/bash -l" or,
add the following setting to your $HOME/.config/asciinema/config file:

[record] command = /bin/bash -l

Why my shell prompt/theme isn't working during recording?

See above.

Why some of my custom shell functions are not available during recording?

See above.

Does it record the passwords I type during recording?

asciinema records only terminal output - everything that you can actually see in a terminal window. It doesn't record input (keys pressed). Some applications turn off "echo mode" when asking for a password, and because the passwords are not visible they are not recorded. Some applications display star characters instead of real characters and asciinema records only "******". However, some applications don't have any precautions and the actual password is visible to the user, and thus recorded by asciinema.

Can I embed the asciicast player on my blog?

Yes, see embedding docs.

How can I delete my asciicast?

In order to delete your asciicast you need to associate your local API token (which was assigned to the recorded asciicast) with the asciinema.org account. Just run asciinema auth in your terminal and open the printed URL in your browser. Once you sign in you'll see a "Delete" link on your asciicast's page.

Can I have my own asciinema site instance?

Yes, you can set up your own asciinema site. The source code of the app that runs asciinema.org is available here.

When you have the site up and running you can easily tell asciinema client to use it by adding following setting to ~/.config/asciinema/config file:

[api]
url = http://asciinema.example.com

Alternatively, you can set ASCIINEMA_API_URL env variable:

ASCIINEMA_API_URL=http://asciinema.example.com asciinema rec

Can I edit/post-process the recorded asciicast?

Yes, if you know how to deal with ansi escape sequences. Asciicasts are self-contained JSON files which you can edit before uploading. Look at stdout attribute in asciicast format doc for inspiration.

3.2 KiB Raw Blame History