# charmbracelet/vhs

Your CLI home video recorder 📼

Repository: https://github.com/charmbracelet/vhs
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/vhs
Language: Go
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: gif, recording, terminal, video, cli, command-line, ascii, vhs
Last push: 2026-08-24T13:22:20+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 82/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 50, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1506, "days_push": 9, "days_rel": 176, "gap_med": 153, "n_releases_24m": 4}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 20740, forks 462 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:30.392943+00:00)

## What it is
VHS is a CLI tool that records terminal sessions into GIFs and videos by scripting them in '.tape' files. It lets you write terminal demos as code, useful for documentation, demos, and CLI integration testing.

## Use cases
- record terminal sessions as gifs
- create animated demos of cli tools
- generate readme gifs from scripts
- test cli tools by scripting terminal input
- automate terminal screencasts for documentation

## When to choose
- you want reproducible, code-driven terminal recordings instead of manual screen capture
- you need GIF demos of CLI tools for READMEs or docs
- you want to script terminal interactions for integration testing

## When to avoid
- you need full desktop screen recording
- you want interactive, ad-hoc recording without writing scripts
- you can't install its dependencies (ttyd and ffmpeg)

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: cli, video-processing, developer-tools, testing
- domain: developer-tools, documentation
- platform: cli, windows, cross-platform
- tags: terminal-recording, gif, asciinema, tape-files, demo-videos, charmbracelet, command-line, automation, macos, linux, docker

## Member repositories
- charmbracelet/vhs (main) score 82

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:30.392943+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T16:58:33.385635+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/charmbracelet/vhs (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:30.392943+00:00, sha 2b1781e65d15)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.