Term-chat

Lightweight terminal chat server and client

Term-chat is a simple server and client npm package that allows users to send and receive messages in the terminal. It can be opened as an interactive chat client, or used as a command to send a single message.

Perhaps the most useful feature is the ability to pipe in messages to quickly send ssh-keys, tokens, urls, or whatever you need to your coding buddies and teammates.

Installation and Usage

npm install -g term-chat

# Server Mode
termchat --server

# Client Mode
termchat --host http://localhost

Run termchat --help for all options.

Default Server

While this project remains small, I am running a default server at http://alexrowe.net. Just run termchat to connect! (Don't post any sensitive information...)

Example Output

Example output (real output is colored!):

$ termchat -h localhost
connected to http://localhost:2797/
channel: general
users in channel: punky, alex
user connected: alex

alex: hello!
punky: hi

Piping and One-off messages

Term-chat can have input piped into it or have a message as a paramter like so:

cat id_rsa.pub | termchat

# Or
termchat $(cat id_rsa.pub)

This way, you can easliy whip those credentials over to your inpatient colleague.

Server Mode

To run a server, use the --server option. Port can be changed with --port

Channels and Nickname

Term-chat has support for channels / rooms and user names.

termchat -c my_cool_channel -u my_fun_name

JSON Client

If you want to display recent messages in some other app, you can try

curl http://<my-server>:2797/json/<channel_name>/<message_count>

and it will return a json structure of recent messages.

License

Quite liberal. Go ahead, use this repository to commit atrocious crimes.