gen-vhs-demo

gen-vhs-demo is a command for Claude Code from sgaunet/claude-plugins. It costs 35 tokens per session (4,849 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A command that creates an animated GIF showing a command-line program in use. It uses VHS, a tool that records scripted terminal sessions, and adds the recording setup to the project documentation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to discover working CLI commands, record a reproducible terminal demo, render a GIF, pin the VHS version, add a regeneration task, and embed the result in the README.
Why use it?
It avoids manually choosing commands, checking whether they work, recording the session, and keeping the README demonstration up to date.

Command for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter. Also seen: mentions CLAUDE.md; mentions subagents; names the AskUserQuestion tool.

Runs only inside its plugin — its command needs a path that Claude Code sets for a plugin’s own hooks and for nothing else. Install the plugin, not this.

Part of the software-engineering plugin — 4 skills, 12 commands, 7 agents shipped together

Good fit Use it to discover working CLI commands, record a reproducible terminal demo, render a GIF, pin the VHS version, add a regeneration task, and embed the result in the README.

Compare 6 commands from other repositories ↓
Install

Getting it into your agent

This one installs as part of its plugin. Adding the marketplace and installing the plugin brings it with everything else the plugin ships.

Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add sgaunet/claude-plugins
Claude Code
/plugin install software-engineering

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install software-engineering, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 4 skills, 12 commands, 7 agents.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for gen-vhs-demo

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/sgaunet/claude-plugins/gen-vhs-demo.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/commands/sgaunet/claude-plugins/gen-vhs-demo)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/sgaunet/claude-plugins/gen-vhs-demo"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/sgaunet/claude-plugins/gen-vhs-demo.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 35 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 4,849 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00035 $0.04849
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.02424
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00970
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00485

Measured 8d ago against content hash b4ea619600eb, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

gen-vhs-demo scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/software-engineering/commands/gen-vhs-demo.md · 443 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 443 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Generate VHS Demo Command

Produce an animated terminal demo of the current project's CLI using VHS: a .tape script, the rendered .gif, a task runner entry to regenerate it, a pinned vhs version in mise.toml, and a Demo section in the README that displays it.

Why This Command Exists

Problem: A CLI's README is a wall of text. A demo GIF is the single highest-value thing you can add to it, but producing one means learning VHS tape syntax, guessing which commands make a good 40-second story, wiring a regeneration task, pinning the tool, and editing the README - 20-30 minutes per repo. Worse, demo tapes rot silently: flags get deprecated, fixture paths move, and nobody notices until the GIF shows a broken command to every visitor.

Solution: One command that:

  • Discovers the CLI's real command surface from source, README, and integration tests
  • Executes every candidate command and requires exit 0 before it enters the tape, so the GIF cannot show a broken invocation
  • Rejects commands that depend on gitignored or untracked fixtures, so the demo reproduces from a clean clone
  • Writes the .tape, renders the .gif, and wires task demo / a make demo target
  • Pins vhs in mise.toml so local and CI renders match
  • Inserts the ![demo](...) reference into the README at the right heading depth

Content Generation Rules

CRITICAL: When generating any content (tape files, task entries, README sections, or any other output):

  • NEVER add Claude Code attribution or co-authorship
  • NEVER include phrases like "Generated by Claude", "Created with Claude Code", or similar
  • NEVER add "Co-Authored-By: Claude" in commit messages or documentation
  • All generated content should appear as if written by a human developer

Additionally, for recorded terminal content:

  • NEVER bake real credentials into a tape - no live API keys, tokens, private keys, internal hostnames, or customer data. Use obviously-fake values ([email protected]) or generate the material inside a Hide block (openssl rand -hex 32).
  • NEVER reference a fixture that is gitignored or untracked. The tape must render from a clean clone.
  • NEVER use a deprecated flag alias - deprecation warnings end up in the recording.

Read the full file on GitHub · 443 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 443 lines · 35 tokens per session scan A b4ea619600eb

Subscribe to this mod's changes

gen-vhs-demo is a command published in the GitHub repository sgaunet/claude-plugins (16 stars, last pushed 6d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 35 tokens to every session and 4,849 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.