By transcript, I mean every command and every response in the debug session. Usually, in the beginning, I do not know yet what I'm looking for, and set breakpoints at points that may be interesting, and when I reach the breakpoints, I look at variables. Later, when I reach the point where things have gone wrong, I can look at variable values now, but also at the result of every previous query. This helps me answer questions like: was this object here already in that queue over there when the previous request came in?

I can also attach the debug session to an issue in order for others or future me to understand what was happening then. In a purely GUI-driven debugger, I can copy&paste a stack trace of the final point, but the history is lost.

I've used scripts + logging in the past:

https://sourceware.org/gdb/onlinedocs/gdb/Logging-Output.htm...

Maybe that is what OP means by a transcript.