asciinema-play(1)

💖 NAME 💖

Okay so bestie, this is the asciinema-play(1) manual page, from the General Commands Manual — and the whole vibe is play back a terminal session 🫶✨.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

asciinema play [-s|--speed] [-l|--loop] [-i|--idle-time-limit]
[-m|--pause-on-markers] [-r|--resize] [-q|--quiet] [-h|--help] <FILE>

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Play back a recorded terminal session. It displays a previously recorded asciicast file in your terminal with various playback controls (see below). Supports local files and remote URLs 💅.

The controls are lowkey iconic, so memorize these:

• Press ctrl+c to interrupt the playback.
• Press space to pause/resume.
• Press . to step forward (while paused).
• Press ] to skip to the next marker (while paused).

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -s, --speed=SPEED — controls the playback speed as a multiplier of the original timing. Values greater than 1.0 make playback faster, while values less than 1.0 make it slower. For example, --speed 2.0 plays at double speed, while --speed 0.5 plays at half speed. The default is 1.0 (original speed). Can also be set via the config file option playback.speed 🔥.
• -l, --loop — enables continuous looping of the recording. When the recording reaches the end, it will automatically restart from the beginning. This continues indefinitely until you interrupt playback with ctrl+c 🔁.
• -i, --idle-time-limit=SECS — limits the maximum idle time between events during playback to the specified number of seconds. Long pauses in the original recording (such as when the user stepped away) will be shortened to this duration, making playback more watchable. This overrides any idle time limit set in the recording itself or in your config file (playback.idle_time_limit) ⏱️.
• -m, --pause-on-markers — automatically pauses playback when encountering marker events. Markers are special events that can be added during recording to mark important points in a session. When this option is enabled, playback will pause at each marker, allowing you to control the flow of the demonstration. Use space to resume, . to step through events, or ] to skip to the next marker ✨.
• -r, --resize — automatically resizes the terminal window to match the original recording dimensions. This option attempts to change your terminal size to match the size used when the recording was made, ensuring the output appears exactly as it was originally recorded. Note that this feature is only supported by some terminals and may not work in all environments 🫶.
• -q, --quiet — suppresses diagnostic messages and progress indicators. Only error messages will be displayed 🤫.
• -h, --help — print help (see a summary with '-h') 😭.
• <FILE> — the path to an asciicast file or HTTP(S) URL to play back. Can be a local file path, HTTP(S) URL for remote files, or - to read from standard input. Remote URLs allow playing recordings directly from the web without need for manual downloading. Supported formats include asciicast v1, v2, and v3 🌈.

🦋 EXTRA 🦋

Examples, bestie — copy these exactly:

• asciinema play demo.cast — plays back a local recording file once.

asciinema play demo.cast

• asciinema play --speed 2.0 --loop demo.cast — plays back at double speed in a loop.

asciinema play --speed 2.0 --loop demo.cast

• asciinema play --idle-time-limit 2 demo.cast — plays back with idle time capped at 2 seconds.

asciinema play --idle-time-limit 2 demo.cast

• asciinema play https://asciinema.org/a/569727 — plays back directly from a URL.

asciinema play https://asciinema.org/a/569727

• asciinema play --pause-on-markers demo.cast — plays back, pausing automatically at every marker.

asciinema play --pause-on-markers demo.cast

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Cute sign-off time 🎀: the footer deets are literally play on one side and asciinema-play(1) on the other, and there’s no separate date/version line in this original footer — that’s the exact whole footer vibe, fr fr 💜🦋.