b.roll

A terminal session recorder with searchable, timestamped output. Think of it as a flight recorder for your shell — record sessions, search through output history, and extract commands as scripts.

Unlike asciinema (video-like playback) or shell history (commands only), broll captures both commands and output with timestamps, stores them in a searchable SQLite database, and provides a TUI for browsing. Commands are captured in real-time via shell hooks (preexec/precmd), so tab completion, arrow keys, and readline editing all work transparently.

Features

• Record terminal sessions via PTY sub-shell — works with zsh and bash
• Name sessions for easy identification and lookup later
• Search across all recorded sessions with prefix-matching full-text search (SQLite FTS5) — live search updates results as you type
• View sessions in a scrollable TUI with timestamped, color-coded output, syntax highlighting, and in-session search (/)
• Mouse support in both TUIs — scroll wheel navigation and click to select/position cursor
• Statistics — broll stats shows session counts, storage size, and date range
• Jump from search results directly into the full session view, scrolled to the match
• Extract commands from any session as a runnable shell script
• Filter sensitive content (passwords, tokens, AWS keys, JWTs) automatically
• Group sessions to correlate multiple terminals working on the same task
• Tag sessions for easy organization and lookup
• Annotate sessions with notes after the fact
• Rename and delete sessions to keep things organized
• Syntax highlighting in view mode — JSON, log levels, URLs, and file:line references are automatically color-coded
• Export/import sessions as portable JSON files for sharing

Installation

From crates.io

cargo install broll

From source

git clone https://github.com/rodbove/broll.git
cd broll
cargo build --release
cp target/release/broll ~/.local/bin/

Requires Rust 1.85+ (edition 2024).

Usage

Record a session

# Start recording (spawns a sub-shell in the current directory)
broll start

# Name the session for easy identification and lookup
broll start --name "api-debug-march"

# Tag and group sessions for organization
broll start --tag "api-debug" --group "deploy-v2"

# Combine name, tag, and group
broll start --name "fix-auth" --tag "server" --group "debug-auth"

# Start in a specific directory
broll start --dir /var/log

# Disable sensitive content filtering
broll start --no-filter

# Stop recording (or just `exit` the shell)
broll stop

When recording, the terminal tab title changes to show broll recording - <name> and a BROLL_SESSION environment variable is set inside the sub-shell. You can optionally add it to your prompt:

# Add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc
PS1="${BROLL_SESSION:+[rec: $BROLL_SESSION] }$PS1"

Search output

# Open live search TUI (type to search, results update as you type)
broll search

# Pre-fill a query (jumps straight to results)
broll search "connection refused"

# Filter by group or terminal
broll search "error" --group deploy-v2
broll search "panic" --terminal term-a3f2

The search TUI has two panels — results list on the left, preview on the right. Run broll search without arguments to enter live search mode where results update as you type with debounced input. Press Tab to switch focus between panels, j/k or arrows to navigate. Press Enter on any result to open the full session in view mode, scrolled to the matching output with it highlighted. Press / or i to edit the search query. Press Esc to return to search results.

View a session

# List all recorded sessions
broll list

# List sessions in a group
broll list --group deploy-v2

# View a session by ID prefix or name
broll view a3f2
broll view fix-auth

The view TUI shows timestamped output with commands highlighted in green and automatic syntax highlighting for output — JSON is color-coded (keys, strings, numbers, bools), log levels are highlighted (ERROR in red, WARN in yellow, INFO in green), and URLs and file:line references stand out. Navigate with j/k, PgUp/PgDn, g/G for top/bottom. Press / to search within the session — matching lines are highlighted, and n/N jumps between matches.

Extract commands

# Print commands to stdout (by ID prefix or name)
broll extract a3f2
broll extract fix-auth

# Save as a script
broll extract a3f2 --output reproduce.sh

View statistics

broll stats

Manage sessions

# Add a note to a session
broll annotate a3f2 "root cause: postgres wasn't running"
broll annotate fix-auth "resolved by rotating JWT signing key"

# Rename a session
broll rename a3f2 "deploy-postmortem"

# Delete a session (prompts for confirmation)
broll delete a3f2

# Delete multiple sessions at once
broll delete a3f2 7e91 c0ff

# Delete without confirmation
broll delete old-session --force

Notes are displayed at the top of the view TUI in a distinct colored section.

How it works

1. broll start spawns your shell inside a PTY (pseudo-terminal) in the current directory
2. Shell hooks (preexec/precmd) capture commands in real-time with the exact text you typed
3. Output is rendered through a virtual terminal (vt100) to preserve column layout and formatting
4. Each chunk gets a timestamp and is stored in a local SQLite database with FTS5 indexing
5. Sensitive content (env vars with secret-like names, bearer tokens, AWS keys, JWTs, DB connection strings) is redacted before storage
6. When the shell exits, the session is finalized

Data is stored locally at:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/broll/broll.db
• Linux: ~/.local/share/broll/broll.db

Session groups

When working across multiple terminals on the same task, use groups to correlate them:

# Terminal 1: API server
broll start --group "debug-auth" --tag "server"

# Terminal 2: curl testing
broll start --group "debug-auth" --tag "client"

# Later: search across both
broll search "401" --group debug-auth

Sensitive content filtering

Filtering is on by default. The following patterns are redacted:

Use --no-filter to disable when you need to capture everything.

Keybindings

View TUI

Search TUI

Tech stack

• Rust with edition 2024
• ratatui + crossterm for TUI
• portable-pty for PTY sub-shell
• vt100 for virtual terminal rendering (preserves column layout)
• rusqlite with bundled SQLite + FTS5 for storage and search
• signal-hook for terminal resize handling

License

MIT