5 Fun Command‑Line Tools to Refresh Your Coding Breaks

Developers often need a quick break, and command‑line tools can provide both fun and productivity without leaving the terminal. Below are five curated CLI utilities, each with a brief overview, repository link, installation instructions, and basic usage commands.

CLI Dou Dizhu (Landlords) Game

This multiplayer card game is built on the Netty framework and lets you play locally or over a network. Repository: https://gitee.com/ainilili/ratel.

Installation:

git clone https://github.com/ainilili/ratel.git

mvn package

After packaging, executable JARs appear in landlords-server and landlords-client directories.

Run the server: java -jar landlords-server-1.2.2.jar -p 1024 Run the client (local):

java -jar landlords-client-1.2.2.jar -p 1024 -h 127.0.0.1

Run the client (remote server example):

java -jar landlords-client-1.2.2.jar -p 1024 -h 39.105.65.8

Enter a nickname

Select game mode (human vs. human or human vs. AI)

Choose difficulty

Start the game

CLI Novel Reader (glance)

A lightweight, cross‑platform command‑line novel viewer written in Go. It runs without extra runtimes and integrates well with Vim. Repository: https://github.com/TimothyYe/glance.

Installation:

wget https://github.com/TimothyYe/glance/releases/download/V0.2/glance-linux64-0.2.tar.gz

tar -zxvf glance-linux64-0.2.tar.gz

Run the executable: ./glance Typical usage commands:

Switch pages up/down

Toggle progress display

Show/hide borders

Change font color

Enable automatic page turning

CLI GitHub Trending Viewer (Wukong)

A Rust‑based tool that fetches the daily GitHub Trending repository and developer rankings. Repository: https://github.com/TonnyL/Wukong.

Installation on macOS: brew install TonnyL/tap/Wukong Installation on Linux (download binary):

wget https://github.com/TonnyL/wukong/releases/download/v0.1.0-alpha02/wukong-linux.tar.gz

tar -zxvf wukong-linux.tar.gz

Typical commands:

./wukong repo   # show trending repositories

./wukong dev    # show trending developers

./wukong --help # display all options

CLI Zhihu Terminal (zhihu-terminal)

A Python 2.7 script that lets you browse Zhihu, upvote, and follow topics from the terminal. Repository: https://github.com/duduainankai/zhihu-terminal.

Installation:

git clone [email protected]:duduainankai/zhihu-terminal.git

cd zhihu-terminal

pip install -r requirements.txt

Configure config.ini and run:

python zhihu.py

CLI Tetris (sedtris)

A classic Tetris game that runs entirely in the terminal. Repository: https://github.com/uuner/sedtris.

Installation:

git clone https://github.com/uuner/sedtris.git

cd sedtris/

chmod +x sedtris.sh

Start the game:

./sedtris.sh

These tools demonstrate how simple command‑line programs can provide entertainment, quick information access, and a pleasant diversion without leaving the development environment.