Pacing & Manual Control

By default, demonator types a command and then waits for you to press Enter before executing it. Two per-step flags give you finer control over where those manual pauses happen.

wait_before

Show the prompt and pause for Enter before the command starts typing. Useful when you want to speak to the audience before the next command appears.

steps:
  - text: "cargo build --release"

  - text: "cargo test"
    wait_before: true   # pause here before typing starts

Flow:

~ $ cargo build --release
<output>
[you press Enter]           ← wait_before pause (cursor is at the prompt)
~ $ cargo test              ← typing begins
[you press Enter]           ← normal execution pause
<output>

wait_after

Pause after the command finishes and its output is shown, before the next prompt appears. Useful when you want time to explain the output before moving on.

steps:
  - text: "kubectl get pods"
    wait_after: true    # pause here after output is shown

  - text: "kubectl describe pod my-pod"

Flow:

~ $ kubectl get pods
<output>
~ $                         ← prompt shown; press any key (Space works well)
~ $ kubectl describe pod my-pod
[you press Enter]           ← normal execution pause
<output>

Press any key, not Enter

wait_after accepts any keypress to advance. Pressing Enter would inject a newline before the next prompt; Space or any other key avoids this and keeps the output clean.

Combining both

You can set both flags on the same step to bracket it with pauses:

steps:
  - text: "terraform apply"
    wait_before: true   # let you explain before typing
    wait_after: true    # let you explain the output

Both flags vs pause directive

The pause directive shows a bare prompt and waits for Enter without running any command:

steps:
  - text: "echo hello"
  - pause              # just waits — no command typed or run
  - text: "echo world"

Use pause when you need a mid-demo break that isn't tied to a specific command. Use wait_before / wait_after when you want the pause anchored to a particular step.

Dry-run display

In --dry-run mode, steps with these flags show the appropriate annotation:

~ $ cargo build --release
~ $ cargo test  [wait-before]
~ $ kubectl get pods  [wait-after]
~ $ terraform apply  [wait-before, wait-after]