> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
> For a complete documentation index, see https://platform.bctrl.ai/llms.txt.
> For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://platform.bctrl.ai/_mcp/server.

# Watch a Run From the Terminal

> Launch a runtime, stream its activity live, and pop open a live view - all from the CLI.

Everything in the other recipes works from the [CLI](/cli/quickstart) too. This one is the whole observability loop with no code at all: one pane runs the automation, one streams what it's doing, and a browser tab shows it happening.

## 1. Launch

```bash
bctrl runtime create --name watch-me --json --jq '.id'
# rt_123

bctrl runtime start rt_123 --json
# { "runId": "run_456", "connectUrl": "wss://...", ... }
```

## 2. Stream the timeline (second pane)

```bash
bctrl run activity stream run_456
```

Every navigation, click, typed burst, and captcha solve prints as it happens. Filter the firehose when you only care about problems:

```bash
bctrl run activity stream run_456 --severity warning
```

## 3. Kick off work (first pane)

Connect your own tooling to the `connectUrl`, or run a hosted agent straight from the shell:

```bash
bctrl runtime invocation create rt_123 \
  --action extract \
  --instruction "Open news.ycombinator.com and extract the top 5 story titles" \
  --json
```

## 4. Watch it with your eyes

```bash
bctrl run live run_456 --control none --expires-in-seconds 600 --json --jq '.url'
```

Open the printed URL in any browser - it's a tokenized, expiring viewer link, safe to paste to a teammate in Slack. Mint it with `--control input` if they should be able to grab the mouse.

> 🎬 **Content TODO:** a terminal recording (asciinema or GIF) of the three panes - invocation running left, activity streaming right, live view open in a browser window - is worth more than any of the prose here.

## 5. Replay it later

```bash
bctrl run recording run_456 --expires-in-seconds 86400 --json --jq '.url'
```

Same idea after the fact: an expiring replay URL you can open or embed.

## Next

* [CLI output & scripting](/cli/output) - `--json`, `--jq`, and templates
* [Embed a Live Browser View](/cookbook/embed-live-view) - the same loop, in your product
* [Agents and CI](/cli/agents) - drive all of this from automation