vercel-labs / webreel

The config format is a webreel.config.json mapping video names to a url, a viewport, and a steps array drawn from eleven action types: pause, click, key, type, scroll, wait, screenshot, drag, moveTo, navigate, hover and select, each optionally followed by a delay. webreel init scaffolds that file, webreel record runs and captures it at roughly 60fps before ffmpeg encodes the output, webreel preview runs the same steps in a visible browser without recording, and webreel composite re-renders a video from a previously stored raw recording without replaying the browser at all. Chrome and ffmpeg are not bundled — they download automatically to ~/.webreel on first run, or via an explicit webreel install.

This is for a team that wants product-demo or documentation videos generated from a versioned script rather than a screen recording, since the same config can be replayed the next time the UI changes and re-composited from stored footage without touching a browser again. The repository ships thirteen named example configs — covering drag-and-drop, form-filling, keyboard shortcuts, mobile viewports, multi-select clicks, page scrolling, and GIF and WebM output among others — each with its own recorded sample video, so the actions table above is not the only documentation available.

READ THE FULL ANALYSIS＋

What it needs. Node.js 18 or later to run the CLI; no API key, account or Cloudflare/AWS-style credential, matching the single "local_tool" dependency label recorded for it — the only setup cost is the one-time Chrome and ffmpeg download. The pnpm build step in the readme is for contributing to webreel itself, not for using it via npm install webreel.