quarto-term

Persistent interactive terminal sessions for Quarto

quarto-term is a Quarto extension that runs commands in a real, persistent shell session. State carries across cells, colors render faithfully, and you can drive fullscreen TUI apps, all from your .qmd file.

quarto-term is great for:

Documentation and tutorials: CLI tools, shell concepts, installation guides, git workflows, and API exploration with real output and persistent state
Technical books and courses: faithful terminal rendering for any “type this, see that” sequence, including TUI walkthroughs, database demos, and data pipeline chains
DevOps and security: runbooks, CTF writeups, and environment setup guides where colored tool output and multi-step sessions matter

date
Sat Aug 15 12:52:41 PM UTC 2026

EXTENSION_NAME="quarto-term"

cowsay "Hello, I'm rendered using $EXTENSION_NAME"
 _______________________________________
< Hello, I'm rendered using quarto-term >
 ---------------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

htop

htop


    0[                            0.0%] Tasks: 42, 111 thr, 107 kthr; 1 runnin
    1[                            0.0%] Load average: 0.35 0.52 0.27 
    2[                            0.0%] Uptime: 00:05:34
    3[                            0.0%]
  Mem[|||||||||||||||||    1012M/15.6G]
  Swp[                        0K/3.00G]

  [Main] [I/O]
    PID USER       PRI  NI  VIRT   RES   SHR S  CPU%▽MEM%   TIME+  Command      
   5243 runner      20   0  8352  4948  3968 R   9.8  0.0  0:00.11 htop         
      1 root        20   0 22876 14340  9880 S   0.0  0.1  0:02.18 /sbin/init
    155 root        19  -1 91464 16456 15172 S   0.0  0.1  0:00.18 /usr/lib/syst
    221 root        RT   0  298M 43676  8760 S   0.0  0.3  0:00.01 /sbin/multipa
    226 root        20   0 25956  8032  5220 S   0.0  0.0  0:00.11 /usr/lib/syst
    228 root        20   0  298M 43676  8760 S   0.0  0.3  0:00.00 /sbin/multipa
    229 root        RT   0  298M 43676  8760 S   0.0  0.3  0:00.00 /sbin/multipa
    230 root        RT   0  298M 43676  8760 S   0.0  0.3  0:00.00 /sbin/multipa
    231 root        RT   0  298M 43676  8760 S   0.0  0.3  0:00.00 /sbin/multipa
    232 root        RT   0  298M 43676  8760 S   0.0  0.3  0:00.00 /sbin/multipa
    233 root        RT   0  298M 43676  8760 S   0.0  0.3  0:00.00 /sbin/multipa
    309 root        20   0  3848  2972  2052 S   0.0  0.0  0:00.05 /usr/lib/linu
    411 systemd-re  20   0 21476 13380 11164 S   0.0  0.1  0:00.10 /usr/lib/syst
F1Help  F2Setup F3SearchF4FilterF5Tree  F6SortByF7Nice -F8Nice +F9Kill  F10Quit

All of the above was produced from a single .qmd file using quarto-term.

Why quarto-term?

Quarto’s built-in bash engine executes each code cell in an isolated subshell. That means:

Variables, cd, and other state don’t persist between cells.
You can’t show interactive TUI applications (htop, vim, nyancat).
Output is plain text with no ANSI color support.
There’s no way to send special keys (Ctrl-C, arrow keys).
You can’t produce terminal recordings alongside your document.

quarto-term solves all of these by running a single persistent shell session that all cells share. It captures output using a real terminal emulator (including colors, cursor movement, and fullscreen apps), and can optionally produce asciicast or termshow recordings for playback.

Features

Persistent sessions. State carries across cells (variables, working directory, shell history).
ANSI color rendering. Faithfully renders colored output as HTML/LaTeX.
Fullscreen capture. Capture TUI apps like htop, vim, or nyancat.
Special keys. Send Ctrl-C, arrow keys, Enter, Escape, and more.
Human typing simulation. Configurable speed and error rate for realistic recordings.
Terminal recordings. Produce .cast (asciicast v2) or .termshow files alongside your document.
Line options. Control timing, key behavior, and prompt expectations per line.
Multi-line commands. Automatic PS2 continuation prompt detection.
Styling. Built-in colorschemes with light/dark mode support, fonts, and sizing.
Multiple output formats. HTML, LaTeX/PDF, and Markdown.

Quick install

quarto add jeroenjanssens/quarto-term

On first render, the correct binary for your platform is automatically downloaded from GitHub Releases and cached locally. Supported platforms: macOS (ARM and Intel), Linux (x86_64 and ARM), and Windows.

See Get Started for a complete walkthrough.