Ask HN: Do you still build terminal tools for fun?

7•FerkiHN•8h ago

Lately I’ve been exploring how far we can still push the terminal — both for fun and for practical tools.

I recently ended up writing a small utility that displays images inside the terminal using only ANSI color blocks. It’s not fancy, but it made me realize how flexible the terminal still is — even without GUI libraries or modern frameworks.

Just wondering: do others here still build CLI or terminal-based tools for side projects, retro use cases, or just for fun?

Would love to hear your favorite hacks or experiments.

Comments

FerkiHN•8h ago

Here's the image viewer I mentioned — it’s a single binary, written in raw C with no dependencies other than SDL2.

Works on Linux, Windows, Termux etc. Demo folder shows some real renders.

GitHub: https://github.com/Ferki-git-creator/phono-in-terminal-image...

asddfgg55•8h ago

Cool, this is the first time I've seen such a rendering program, I didn't even know that such a high-quality image could be in the terminal.

FerkiHN•8h ago

Thank you for the feedback, I am very pleased.

jlundberg•8h ago

Yes, our whole customer support is CLI based. We probably have more than 200+ custom internal tools now.

Many tools use simple coloring, like this (in Python):

print( red( ”Warning: xyz” ) )

FerkiHN•7h ago

That's awesome — love seeing serious CLI-based workflows like that. Feels efficient and hacker-core I'm also a big fan of minimal terminal tools. It's cool how even simple color highlights like red("Warning: xyz") can boost usability a lot. Totally agree — sometimes all you need is clean output and fast feedback.

jjgreen•8h ago

That's about the 10th time you've posted this, please give it a rest.

msgodel•8h ago

Unless you need actual bitmapped graphics the VTE is probably the best and most portable graphics API available currently.

FerkiHN•7h ago

Yeah, VTE is a powerful tool — I agree. In my case, I wanted to stick as close to raw ANSI as possible to maintain compatibility even with very old terminals (even Termux!). But it would definitely be interesting to try something with VTE in the future.

gregjor•6h ago

Not for fun, but I do build CLI tools for development and production use.

Show HN: 1-click analytics for startups (HTTPS://arka.so)

The Component Manifesto

Seagate gets its long-awaited HAMR tech into $600 30TB HDDs you can buy

Project Controlled Weather Popeye

Show HN: Nexus Protocol – An open-source OS for AI consciousness

Effectively Zero-Knowledge Proofs for NP with No Interaction, No Setup

Long Overdue

ValiDrive: Quickly spot-check USB mass storage drive for fraudulent capacity

Rules Clobber Goals

The Spanish Government wants Huawei to monitor for system wiretaps

DeadliQ – AI-powered deadline tracking for your documents

Unmoved mover

Ask HN: Stylography, AI and an impending privacy nightmare?

US Government announces $200M Grok contract a week after 'MechaHitler'

The Tiny Teams Playbook

Microlasers Made from Edible Substances

Careless People (Review of the Book)

Detecting and reporting all unhandled C++ exceptions

ChatGPT made up a product feature out of thin air, so this company created it

(211) House Republicans Vote to Block Release of Epstein Files

Survival of the Greediest

Read GitHub repos in one second in VSCode

SF Bay Area Aging Demographics

Energy expenditure and obesity across the economic spectrum

AI Breaking into Higher Dimension to Mimic Human Brain and Achieve Intelligence

Show HN: Tell the world why you unfollowed/muted a social media account

Is AI the end of coding as we know it, or just another tool?

WordPress Turmoil and the Fair Package Manager

The Pragmatic Engineer 2025 Survey: What's in your tech stack?

Graph Continuous Thought Machines