textualize/rich-cli

Rich-CLI is a command-line tool that makes reading files in the terminal much more pleasant. Instead of seeing plain text, you run the rich command followed by a filename and the output comes out color-coded and easy to scan. It was built by the Textualize team using their Rich Python library, and is installable via Homebrew on macOS, via pipx on Windows and Linux, or via pip and conda on any system. The main thing it does is display files with syntax coloring. Point it at a Python script or most other code file types and it highlights keywords, strings, and comments in colors suited to that language. You can add line numbers and indentation guides, pick a color theme, and control line wrapping. Different file formats get specialized handling: Markdown files render with proper headers and bold text instead of showing the raw symbols, JSON files display with color-coded structure, CSV and TSV spreadsheets show up as formatted tables, and Jupyter notebook files handle code cells and text cells separately. Rich-CLI is not limited to local files. You can hand it a URL starting with http:// or https:// and it will fetch and display that file directly. You can also pipe output from another program into it using the - placeholder. For long files, a built-in scrollable pager lets you navigate without content rushing past the screen. There are controls for the visual presentation: set a fixed output width, align the block left or center or right within the terminal, set how text justifies within that block, and apply custom styles like background colors. If you want to apply inline styling to a short piece of text rather than a file, the --print flag treats your text as markup and renders colors and bold directly. Rendered output can also be exported to an HTML file for sharing or archiving.