Your terminal already has everything. Now it has a bookshelf.
A low-friction reading tool for developers who never leave the terminal.
Waiting for a build to finish? Pipeline still running? You have 5 minutes.
You open your phone. 40 minutes later, you're still scrolling.
ReadShell is built for that gap — a reading space that lives inside your workflow, not outside it.
novel resumeOne command. Back to where you were. Back to work when you're ready.
📖 novel resume — Zero-friction re-entry
The most important command. Picks up exactly where you left off, down to the byte.
🥷 Boss Key (b / Esc) — Instant disguise
One keypress transforms the reader into a convincing terminal error log. Your secret is safe.
Boss Key wipes the scrollback buffer and shows a fake error. Use novel resume to instantly jump back when safe.
⏱ Reading time estimate Calibrated to your actual reading speed. Tells you if you have time for one more chapter.
🔖 Bookmarks (m)
Capture a passage mid-read. Revisit it later from the chapter navigator (c).
📚 Batch import
novel import ~/books/ — recursively imports an entire folder of .txt and .epub files.
🌐 i18n Native English and Chinese support.
npm install -g readshell# Import your books
novel import ~/books/
# Jump back in
novel resume
# Or pick a specific book
novel open <book-id>
# Browse your library
novel list| Key | Action |
|---|---|
Space / j / ↓ |
Next page / scroll down |
k / ↑ |
Previous page / scroll up |
c |
Chapter list & bookmarks |
Tab |
Toggle chapters / bookmarks |
m |
Add bookmark |
b / Esc |
Boss Key — disguise & save |
q |
Quit & save |
? |
Help |
novel lang en # Set language (en / zh)
novel config line-spacing 1 # Line spacing
novel config reading-mode scroll # scroll or page
novel update # Update to latestThe terminal is already where you live. It's focused, text-only, and distraction-resistant by nature.
ReadShell doesn't ask you to context-switch. It sits quietly in your workflow — invisible to colleagues, zero install friction, no accounts, no cloud, no noise.
Your reading history lives entirely on your local machine in a SQLite file. Nothing leaves your disk.
- TypeScript + Node.js ≥ 18
- Ink — React-based TUI framework
- SQLite (
better-sqlite3) — local-first, zero-dependency storage - Vitest — testing
src/
├── cli/ # Command layer
├── ui/ # TUI components (Ink)
├── services/ # Business logic
├── parsers/ # txt / epub parsers
├── db/ # SQLite layer
├── config/ # Config management
└── utils/
Issues, ideas, and PRs are welcome. If ReadShell fits into your workflow, a ⭐ helps more people find it.