# typesmith on pypi — a terminal auto-typer for clean recordings

shipped a small python cli called typesmith to pypi today. it types commands into your terminal character-by-character with realistic variable speed, so screen recordings look like someone is actually typing rather than pasting from a clipboard.

zero dependencies. just python 3 stdlib. ~700 lines of code in one file.

pipx install typesmith
typesmith run demo.txt

why

i’m a slow typer and i mistype constantly. for years that meant either editing my recordings to splice out the bad takes, or pasting commands into the terminal and having recordings that look obviously faked. neither is great.

typesmith is the third option: type real commands at a speed that looks human, on take one, every time.

what’s in the simulation

a fixed delay between keystrokes feels wrong because it’s too regular. typing actually has a rhythm. typesmith mimics it with four small tricks:

• gaussian jitter around the base delay (controlled by --variance)
• word boundary pause — small extra delay after a space
• punctuation hesitation — slightly longer pauses after . , ; : ! ?
• thinking pauses — ~2% of keystrokes get a 0.2–0.5s pause, like someone briefly thinking

at speed 8–12 chars/sec it looks convincingly human. above 20 it starts to look mechanical again.

the safer default

initial release ran every command immediately. great for live demos, terrifying for recordings — i don’t want a stray rm to take out a real file mid-take.

flipped a couple commits later: display-only is now the default, --execute / -x opts in. the rare “i wanted it to actually run” case is much cheaper to recover from than the rare “i deleted the wrong thing on camera” case. defaults should be safe.

naming

started as “keysmith.” renamed before the first pypi push because (1) keysmith is already a niche password-manager-adjacent name, and (2) “typesmith” reads more naturally for what it actually does — it forges typing, not keys.

source at github.com/bradtraversy/typesmith. linux + macos only — uses posix terminal controls, won’t work on windows without wsl.

the next few small open-source tools are going to follow this pattern: one obvious problem i have, the smallest possible thing that fixes it, shipped to a public registry the same day i write it.