ttystudio

ttystudio records a terminal session and directly generates a GIF or APNG without relying on external tools such as ImageMagick or ffmpeg. It captures each frame by spawning a pseudo‑terminal, parses the characters and colors, and renders them using an embedded font, producing a single image file that can be viewed with any standard browser or image viewer.

The tool is intended for developers who need a lightweight way to create visual demonstrations of command‑line workflows, especially when working on remote machines via SSH. It supports both recording to a JSON frame file and later compilation, as well as on‑the‑fly recording and compilation in one step. Options allow control over frame range, delay, and palette handling, and the output can be piped to other programs.

Because the GIF/APNG writer and font rendering are built into the Node.js package, ttystudio works without additional scripts, concatenation steps, or GUI components, making it a self‑contained solution for terminal‑to‑animation conversion.