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Use case

A GIF for your GitHub README

One action, six seconds, no audio. That is the whole format, and it is the difference between a README people skim and one they understand.

A GIF is the README's screenshot

A still screenshot proves the UI exists. A six-second loop proves it works. GitHub renders GIFs inline, autoplays them and does not ask the reader to click anything.

Keep it under 10 MB

GitHub is fine with more, but the README gets slow to load on mobile and people scroll past.

Six to eight seconds

One action, one result. If it needs narration, it is a video link, not a GIF.

No audio at all

READMEs are read in silence. Burn any necessary words into the frame as captions.

Recording the loop

  1. Decide the single action. "Run the command, see the result." Not "tour the app".
  2. Record that action only. Window capture, so the desktop never appears in the README.
  3. Trim hard. Cut the first second and the last second on the timeline.
  4. Export GIF. Same take also exports as MP4 for the release notes.
  5. Commit under docs/. Reference it with a relative path so forks keep working.

Common mistakes

  • Recording the whole desktop — window capture removes the clutter and the focus problem.
  • Leaving the terminal prompt blinking for two seconds at each end.
  • Huge file sizes from a photographic background behind the UI.
  • Naming it demo.gif in the repo root; put it in docs/ instead.

Record it once, on Windows.

Install, record two minutes, export. If it does not look better than what you send today, uninstall it.

Download for Windows
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