termchat

A fast, asynchronous, bi-directional chat server and client built entirely for the terminal.

Features

• Pure CLI Experience: No heavy TUI frameworks (too lazy). Native standard I/O with clean padding and ANSI color formatting.
• Asynchronous Networking: Powered by tokio and tokio-util for instant, non-blocking message broadcasting over raw TCP streams.
• Smart Routing: The server tracks active connections in real-time, allowing for room rosters and system alerts.
• Profile Management: Persists your username locally via config so you don't have to type it on every connection.

list of features

• server and client connection
• inline chat commands (/theme, /random shi)
• inline chat completions
• theme
• /ask command for chatting with LLMs
• /color to change color of name
• persistant chat or history
• better managment with user (auth and config idk)

Installation

No Rust required — just grab the pre-built binary for your platform.

Linux & macOS (one-liner)

curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LHagfoss/termchat/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

This downloads the latest release binary and places it in ~/.local/bin. Make sure that directory is in your $PATH (add export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH" to your shell config if needed).

Windows

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LHagfoss/termchat/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex

Arch Linux (AUR)

Coming soon — will publish when im not lazy.

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

Coming soon — will publish when im not lazy.

From source

If you do have Rust installed:

cargo install --path .

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Usage

# Start a server
termchat start

# Join a server
termchat join

See termchat --help for all commands and options.