rec is a command-line utility that records terminal sessions and turns them into reusable workflows.
It captures commands run in supported shells together with contextual information such as working directory, exit code, and timing, then lets you replay sessions with guardrails or export them into portable artifacts such as shell scripts, CI/CD pipelines, Dockerfiles, and Markdown documentation.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Supports Bash, Zsh, and Fish through native shell hook integration.
- Stores sessions in crash-safe NDJSON format with automatic recovery support.
- Provides session management tools including search, diff, rename, tagging, aliases, and statistics.
- Offers smart parameterization to replace environment-specific values with reusable variables during export.
- Includes an optional terminal user interface for browsing, replaying, exporting, and deleting sessions.
- Can import existing shell history and scripts into new recorded sessions.
- Cross-platform support – runs under Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Website: github.com/zeybek/rec
Support:
Developer: Ahmet Zeybek
License: MIT License
rec is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
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| TermRecord | Terminal session recorder with easy-to-share self-contained HTML output |
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| termrec | Set of tools for recording and replaying tty sessions |
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| script | The granddaddy of terminal recorders |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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