Local recording

littledemo record runs the LittleDemo recording engine on your machine. It reaches what cloud generation cannot: localhost dev servers and apps behind your own login. No credits are consumed until you upload.

bash
littledemo record http://localhost:3000 --out demo.mp4 --gif

Chrome/Chromium and ffmpeg are auto-detected (override with CHROME_PATH / FFMPEG_PATH). Outputs the video plus a demo.png thumbnail and, with --gif, an animated demo.gif.

Recording authed apps

Three ways to record behind a login:

bash
# 1. Persistent profile: log in once in the window that opens, re-run foreverlittledemo record https://app.example.com --profile# 2. Playwright storage state (great in CI after a Playwright auth setup step)littledemo record https://app.example.com --storage-state auth.json# 3. Attach to YOUR running Chrome (sessions, extensions, everything)#    chrome --remote-debugging-port=9222 --user-data-dir=$HOME/chrome-debuglittledemo record https://app.example.com --attach 9222

Attach mode never closes or kills your browser, records at true speed, and removes every injected element and emulation override when it finishes.

Record and host in one shot

bash
littledemo record http://localhost:3000 \  --upload --project proj_abc123 \  --prompt "New billing settings page" \  --json --yes

--upload chains straight into demos upload, attaching the generated thumbnail and GIF automatically, and prints the shareUrl, embedUrl, gifUrl, and thumbUrl. Uploading publishes a public-by-link URL, so it asks for confirmation — pass --yes in scripts and CI.

Scripted steps

Free recordings scroll-tour the page. For a guided flow, pass --steps steps.json:

json
{  "steps": [    { "action": "click", "text": "Settings" },    { "action": "type", "selector": "#team-name", "text": "Acme Corp" },    { "action": "click", "text": "Save changes" },    { "action": "pause", "ms": 1200 }  ]}

Actions: pause, click, type, key, scroll, wait, navigate, hover, select, moveTo, drag, screenshot, callout. Target elements by visible text (preferred — resilient to markup changes) or CSS selector. Malformed steps fail with a field-level error before the browser launches.

Options

Flag	Meaning
--steps <file>	Scripted steps JSON (validated up front)
--out <path>	Output video path (default ./demo.mp4)
--duration <sec>	Target length for the default scroll tour
--gif	Also encode an animated GIF (640px, 12fps — renders inline on GitHub)
--deterministic	Stepped virtual clock: reproducible pacing, faster wall-clock
--viewport WxH	e.g. 1440x900
--mockup <style>	macos-dark, macos-light, minimal, none
--no-zoom	Disable click-follow zoom
--profile [dir]	Launch a visible Chrome with a persistent profile (default ~/.littledemo/chrome-profile) — log into your app once, record it forever
--attach <port>	Record an existing Chrome you launched with --remote-debugging-port=<port> --user-data-dir=<dir> — never killed, always true-speed capture, all injected UI removed afterwards
--headful	Show the launched browser window
--cookies <f>	Inject cookies (JSON array) before navigation
--storage-state <f>	Inject cookies from a Playwright storageState file
--upload	Upload after recording (requires --project, --prompt)
--yes	Skip the publish confirmation (CI)
--json	Machine-readable result on stdout

The engine itself ships as @littledemo/recorder (npx --package=@littledemo/recorder littledemo-record), which the CLI uses automatically when no local install is found.