hntui

Terminal UI for Hacker News

TLDR

Open Hacker News in the terminal

$ hntui

Replace a standalone binary with the latest release

$ hntui update

Print the installed version

$ hntui --version

SYNOPSIS

hntui [update | version | -v | --version]

hntui is a full-screen terminal browser for Hacker News. It loads the public Firebase API and lists six feeds: Top, New, Best, Ask, Show, and Jobs. Two extra lists, Saved and History, sit beside those feeds.The story list and the comment thread both use vim-style motion. Stories open in a threaded comment view. A story URL opens in the system browser. Comment links that point at another Hacker News post open inside the app. The mouse works for tabs, rows, collapsing a thread, and a right-click menu (save, open URL, open comments).With no argument, hntui starts the interface. hntui update checks GitHub releases. A binary install is replaced in place. A Bun install prints the bun add -g @ahmd-sh/hntui command instead of overwriting itself. A source checkout tells you to git pull. hntui --version (also -v or version) prints the version and exits. Any other argument is an error.

CONFIGURATION

State is two JSON files under ~/.config/hntui/:saved.json

Stories marked with s, each stored as an id and a timestamp. A star marks them in the list. S opens the saved tab.

history.json

Stories that were opened, capped at 1000 entries. H opens the list. x clears it.

On first launch, a directory left at ~/.config/hackernuis/ (the previous name of this program) is renamed to ~/.config/hntui/. There is no keybinding or theme file. The theme toggle lasts until the process exits. Failed writes to the JSON files are ignored.

KEY BINDINGS

j, k, Down, Up

Move the cursor.

gg, G

Jump to the first or last row.

Ctrl-D, Ctrl-U, PgDown, PgUp

Scroll half a page.

h, l, Left, Right

Previous or next category on the story list.

Tab, Shift-Tab

Cycle categories.

1 through 6

Jump to Top, New, Best, Ask, Show, or Jobs.

c, Enter

Open the highlighted story and its comments.

Open the story URL in a browser.

Open the story's Hacker News item page in a browser.

Save or unsave the highlighted story.

Switch to the saved list.

Switch to view history.

Refresh the current feed. Ignored on Saved and History.

Clear view history. Only works on the History list.

Space

Collapse or expand the comment under the cursor.

Enter (comment view)

Open links from that comment. A Hacker News post opens in the app.

h, Esc, Backspace

Leave the comment view.

Swap the dark theme and the light theme for this session.

Show or hide the shortcut overlay. Esc closes it.

q, Ctrl-C

Quit. Ctrl-C quits from the story list.

CAVEATS

Needs a network connection to the Hacker News API. The UI expects a UTF-8 terminal with truecolor and mouse reporting. Because the app captures the mouse, drag-to-select uses Option-drag on macOS and Shift-drag on Linux. Prebuilt binaries cover Linux (x64 and arm64) and Apple Silicon. An Intel Mac has no prebuilt binary. hntui update on a Bun or source install does not replace the files itself.

HISTORY

hntui was written by Ahmed Shaikh in 2026. It is a TypeScript program on OpenTUI, React, and Bun, published as @ahmd-sh/hntui. It was renamed from hackernuis.

RESOURCES

Source code