Recording demos

Instead of writing scenes and moves by hand, you can record what you do in the editor and let Demo Time turn it into an act for you. Click record, create a file, type some content, save and highlight a few lines, then click stop — Demo Time writes a version 3 act file with the matching create, open, applyPatch, save and highlight moves.

Experimental

Recording is a new way to author demos. The generated act is a normal act file, so you can always open it in the Act Editor afterwards to fine-tune the scenes and moves.

Start and stop recording

The recorder is controlled from the Acts & Scenes view in the Demo Time activity bar:

• Click the ● Record button in the view title bar to start. The button changes to a ■ Stop button while recording.
• Do your thing in the editor — create files, type, save, switch files.
• Click ■ Stop to finish. Demo Time asks for a title and creates a new act file in the .demo folder.

You can also use the command palette: Demo Time: Record demo and Demo Time: Stop demo recording.

When you press Escape at the title prompt, Demo Time asks whether to discard the recording. Keep creates the act with the suggested title. When an act file with the same name already exists, a number is added to the file name, like my-demo-2.json.

What gets captured

You do…	Recorded move
Have a file open when you start recording	open
Create a new file	create followed by open
Create a file outside VS Code (terminal, git, a CLI)	create, open and an applyPatch with its content, once you open or edit it
Type or edit a file	applyPatch (edits are coalesced — see segmentation)
Save a file	save (can be disabled, see settings). Only manual saves are captured, auto save is ignored
Switch to another file	flushes the pending edits into a move, and open for the file you switch to

Every move happens in the file that the replay shows: when you go back to a file you edited before, or a file changes in the background, the recording adds an open move for it first. Each scene starts with an open move, so it also works when you start the play from that scene.

Highlights, move boundaries and new scenes are added on demand through the recording actions.

Note

Only files inside your workspace are recorded. The .demo folder itself (act files, snapshots and patches) is ignored, so the recorder never captures its own output.

How edits become moves

While recording, your edits to a file are coalesced: everything you type piles up and only becomes a single applyPatch move when a boundary is reached. The boundaries are:

• Switching to another file
• Saving the file manually (auto saves, like with files.autoSave, are not a boundary)
• The Split move action (a manual boundary, see below)
• The New scene action
• Stopping the recording

This keeps the result clean — one move per meaningful chunk instead of one move per keystroke. Use Split move when you want to break a long edit into several steps within the same scene.

Recording actions

While recording, right-click in the editor to open the Demo Time submenu, or run the actions from the command palette (Demo Time: Mark highlight, Demo Time: Split move, Demo Time: New scene). The menu and commands only appear while a recording is active.

Action	What it does
Mark highlight	Capture the current selection as a highlight move. With no selection it highlights the current line. A selection that ends at the start of a line, like after Shift+Down or a triple-click, does not include that line.
Split move	End the current move and start a new one — without leaving the file or saving.
New scene	End the current scene and start a new one. You are prompted for the scene title; leave it empty for Scene N, or press Escape to cancel.
Stop demo recording	Finish recording and create the act file.

The actions have no default keyboard shortcuts. To add your own, search for the command in Keyboard Shortcuts and use demo-time.isRecording as the when clause.

Tip

Split move keeps you in the same scene and just starts a new move; New scene ends the whole scene (a group of moves) and begins a new section of your demo.

Generated files

When you stop, Demo Time creates:

• A new act file in the .demo folder (in JSON or YAML, depending on your demoTime.defaultFileType setting).
• A snapshot and patch per edit move, under .demo/snapshots/recording-<timestamp>/ and .demo/patches/recording-<timestamp>/. These are referenced by the applyPatch moves and use the same format as the Patch actions.

Here is an example of what a recorded act looks like:

JSON

{
  "$schema": "https://demotime.show/demo-time.schema.json",
  "title": "Recorded demo 20260625-101500",
  "description": "Recorded with Demo Time",
  "version": 3,
  "scenes": [
    {
      "title": "Scene 1",
      "moves": [
        { "action": "create", "path": "/src/app.ts" },
        { "action": "open", "path": "/src/app.ts" },
        {
          "action": "applyPatch",
          "path": "/src/app.ts",
          "contentPath": "/.demo/snapshots/recording-20260625-101500/001-app.ts",
          "patch": "/.demo/patches/recording-20260625-101500/001-app.ts.patch"
        },
        { "action": "highlight", "path": "/src/app.ts", "position": "1:3" },
        { "action": "save" }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

YAML

title: Recorded demo 20260625-101500
description: Recorded with Demo Time
version: 3
scenes:
  - title: Scene 1
    moves:
      - action: create
        path: /src/app.ts
      - action: open
        path: /src/app.ts
      - action: applyPatch
        path: /src/app.ts
        contentPath: /.demo/snapshots/recording-20260625-101500/001-app.ts
        patch: /.demo/patches/recording-20260625-101500/001-app.ts.patch
      - action: highlight
        path: /src/app.ts
        position: "1:3"
      - action: save

Tip

After recording, open the act in the Act Editor to tweak titles, reorder moves, change the typing mode of the applyPatch moves, or remove anything you do not need.

Before you present

• Reset your workspace. When you stop recording, your files are in their final state. Undo the changes before you present, for instance with git restore and by deleting the files you created (git clean), so the play starts from the same files as the recording.
• Choose a typing mode. The recorded applyPatch moves have no insertTypingMode, so they replay with the demoTime.insertTypingMode setting, which is instant by default. Set insertTypingMode to character-by-character or line-by-line on the moves, or change the setting, to type the code like you did while recording.

Limitations

• Only files in the first workspace folder are recorded.
• Terminal commands are not recorded. Add executeTerminalCommand moves in the Act Editor.
• Renaming and deleting files is not recorded. Add rename and deleteFile moves in the Act Editor.

Settings

Setting	Description	Default
demoTime.recording.captureSaves	When recording a demo, capture file saves as save moves.	true