Code screenshots¶

Pair shotty with bat (or any other syntax-highlighting CLI) and you have a one-liner that produces social-media-ready code shots in seconds, without leaving the terminal, without a web app, and without the copy-paste round-trip.

shotty --font CascadiaCode-Regular --font-size 14 \
    "bat --color=always --paging=never -p src/main.swift"

The division of labour: bat does the syntax highlighting, shotty wraps it in clean macOS chrome and writes the PNG.

Recommended setup¶

shotty \
    --font CascadiaCode-Regular --font-size 14 --line-height 1.3 \
    --title "src/main.swift" \
    "bat --color=always --paging=never --style=numbers,grid src/main.swift"

What each flag is doing:

• --font + --font-size — pick something with programming ligatures or a clearer monospace than Menlo. --list-fonts to see what you've got.
• --line-height 1.3 — code reads better with more vertical breathing room than prose.
• --title — overrides the auto-prompt header with just the filename.
• --style=numbers,grid — bat's default chrome (line numbers, gutter separator) looks great inside shotty's window.
• --paging=never — keeps bat from opening less (which would hang under PTY without --timeout).

Trim the chrome for embeds¶

For a slide, hero image, or social post where the macOS window frame distracts from the code:

shotty --no-title --no-shadow --margin 0 --snug \
    "bat --color=always --paging=never -p src/main.swift"

You're left with just the colored cell grid and bat's syntax highlighting.

Other syntax highlighters¶

Anything that emits ANSI works the same way:

Diffs¶

delta for git diffs is especially nice — colored hunk headers, highlighted intra-line changes, file separators:

shotty --width 100 --no-snug \
    "git -c core.pager=delta diff HEAD~1 -- src/main.swift"

Pair with --no-snug so the diff context doesn't get trimmed when only a few lines changed.

See also¶

• Basic usage — the underlying flags, in context.
• --font + --list-fonts — every available font.
• --timeout — if you forgot --paging=never and bat's pager is hanging.