Syntax Highlighting¶

Syntax highlighting colorizes commands as they are typed, making them easier to read during a demo.

Enabling highlighting¶

Set highlight: true at the global level:

highlight: true

steps:
  - text: "cat README.md | grep -i 'install' > output.txt"
  - text: "docker build --tag myapp:latest ."
  - text: "echo $HOME"
  - text: "curl -s 'https://api.example.com/data' | jq '.results[]'"

Color scheme¶

Element	Color	Example
Command (first word)	Bold white	`docker`, `echo`
Flags (`--foo`, `-v`)	Yellow	`--tag`, `-s`
Quoted strings (`"`, `'`)	Green	`"hello"`, `'*.txt'`
Pipes and redirects	Cyan	`\\|`, `>`, `>>`
Operators (`&&`, `;`)	Cyan	`&&`, `;`
Variables (`$FOO`, `${BAR}`)	Magenta	`$HOME`, `${PATH}`
Shell comments	Green	`# this is a comment`
Everything else	Default	arguments, paths

How it works¶

Highlighting is applied character-by-character as the command is typed. Each character is emitted with the appropriate ANSI color code, so the color appears immediately — there's no flicker or delay.

After a pipe (|), semicolon (;), or double-ampersand (&&), the next word is treated as a new command and highlighted in bold white.

Example output¶

The command:

cat data.json | grep -i "error" > errors.txt && echo "done"

Would appear as:

cat (bold white) data.json (default) | (cyan) grep (bold white) -i (yellow) "error" (green) > (cyan) errors.txt (default) && (cyan) echo (bold white) "done" (green)

Tips¶

Highlighting works with all other features (fake output typing, auto-advance, chapters, etc.)
The highlighter handles nested quotes, escaped characters in double-quoted strings, and ${brace} variable syntax
For commands that are mostly flags and strings (like curl or docker), highlighting significantly improves readability