Command line

reel [run] <reel> [--profile <name> ...] [--events <path>]
reel record <reel> [--events <path>]
reel render <reel> [--profile <name> ...] [--events <path>]
reel check <reel> [--profile <name> ...]
reel profiles [<reel>]
reel doctor

Command
`reel <reel>`, `reel run <reel>`	Records the reel, then renders every output. Every profile it will render is read first, so a mistake stops it before recording.
`reel record <reel>`	Only records the take, into `.reel/<reel name>/` next to the reel.
`reel render <reel>`	Only renders the outputs from the last take. Refused when an action in the reel has changed since.
`reel check <reel>`	Reads the reel and says what it would do: what it opens, the narration, its actions and captions, and every file it would write, for each profile. Records nothing.
`reel profiles [<reel>]`	The built-in profiles and what each sets; with a reel, its profiles too, with where each setting comes from.
`reel doctor`	Whether Screen Recording and Accessibility are granted (it doesn't ask), and which browser `Set Browser chromium` would use.
`reel --version`	The version.

--profile renders only some profiles: repeat it, or separate names with commas (--profile github,social). A reel that lists its profiles (Set Profiles) renders only from among them.

Rendering says what it is doing as it goes, a line before each pass, then where it wrote each output:

profile web
rendering the take
framing it at 16:10
adding the intro and outro
encoding musicbox-web.mp4
wrote docs/media/musicbox-web.mp4 (12.2 MB, H.264 1920x1256, 30 fps, quality 60)
drawing musicbox-web.gif
wrote docs/media/musicbox-web.gif (412 frames of 1500 sampled, 9.9 MB)

Progress events

run, record and render say what they are doing as they do it, one JSON object per line: the run starting, each scene, each step starting and ending ("index": 3, "count": 14), capture starting (the part of the screen recorded, in global points) and ending, each pass of the render with its profile, Output and how far along it is ("fraction": 0.42; draw, render, frame, join, tracks, encode, gif, with attempt when a pass is redone to fit MaxSize), each file written, every line printed, and the run ending or failing.

{"at":1793605741592,"count":4,"index":2,"kind":"step","line":8,"phase":"start","pid":23726,"source":"Go line 2"}
{"at":1793605742669,"kind":"pass","pass":{"attempt":1,"fraction":0.5,"name":"encode","output":"demo-github.mp4","profile":"github"},"pid":23726}

Every run writes them to ~/Library/Application Support/reel/runs/<pid>.jsonl, where the companion app reads them; --events <path> also writes them to that file, and --events - to standard error. A track of a reel of tracks adds "track". What is printed is the same either way, and nothing reads the events back: they never change what a run does.

Warnings, such as a relative path that leads out of the git repository, go to standard error. Exit status is non-zero on any error, with the line it was on.

The take

.reel/<reel name>/ holds the take and what rendering derives from it:

File
`take.mov`	The recording: the window and its sound.
`take.json`	The window's size and scale, and when each step ran.
`voice/`	Each narrated line, voiced and cached.
`edit.json`	What of the take was kept, and how fast.

Add .reel/ to your .gitignore.