wiCLIpedia

This is a minimalist command line interface (CLI) program to fetch and display data from Wikipedia.

In an era where Artificial Intelligence answers everything and large language models shape our knowledge, this program is a small tribute to Wikipedia, the silent, human-curated backbone that feeds those very models. Never forget the source.

Features

• Fetches and displays article summaries and table of contents
• Navigates article sections interactively
• Opens a section's main article when a dedicated page exists
• Jumps to related pages linked within the article sections
• Handles redirects and disambiguation pages automatically
• Supports multiple Wikipedia languages
• Caches responses locally to minimize API calls
• ANSI colors and styles for enhanced readability (can be disabled)

Installation

pip install wiclipedia

Usage

wicli "Blade Runner"

If no page title is provided, the program will prompt you to enter one interactively.

You will be interactively prompted to navigate through the article summary sections.
To navigate, use the section numbers shown in the table of contents.

If the query matches a disambiguation page, you will be prompted to select the intended article from a list of options.

When a section opens with a main-article hatnote (e.g. {{Main}}, {{See also}}), you are told that a dedicated page exists: enter 0 to open it.

While reading an article, related pages found in list items (e.g. a "See also" section) are not shown automatically. If any are found, enter j to display them, then use j1, j2, etc. to jump directly to one of them.

By default, it fetches the English Wikipedia. To specify a different language, use the -l or --lang option:

wicli "La classe operaia va in paradiso" --lang it

Available commands during navigation:

• :b — Go back to the start prompt
• :q — Exit the program
• :m — Show the table of contents menu (only available when navigating sections)
• 0 — Open the main article of the current section
• j — Show the related pages found in the current section
• j1, j2, … — Jump to a related page (after entering j)

At the start prompt, you can also use:

• :show-w — Show the warranty disclaimer
• :show-c — Show the redistribution conditions

Options

Cache

Responses are cached locally for 72 hours to reduce API calls.
The cache is stored in ~/.cache/wiclipedia/.
Use --no-cache to bypass it for a session, or --purge to clear it entirely.

Display

ANSI colors and styles are enabled by default.
Set the NO_COLOR environment variable to disable them (see no-color.org).

API Respect and Fair Use Disclaimer

wiCLIpedia interfaces directly with the official Wikipedia PHP/MediaWiki APIs without using any third-party scraping libraries.
Please use this program responsibly. If you need to perform massive automated data extraction, use official database dumps instead of hammering the live API.

wiCLIpedia caches responses locally for 72 hours by default to minimize API load. Check the Cache section for details.

More information about the MediaWiki API and usage guidelines:

• API Documentation
• API Etiquette

License

This program is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0+).
See the LICENSE file for details.

Changelog

See CHANGES.md for release notes.