# santinic/how2

AI for the Command Line

Repository: https://github.com/santinic/how2
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/how2
Homepage: https://how2terminal.com
Language: JavaScript
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2023-03-15T06:25:21+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3854, "days_push": 1267, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 5772, forks 153 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:29.459388+00:00)

## What it is
how2 is a command-line tool that suggests Unix shell commands from natural-language queries, using AI models retrained on Bash/Zsh plus StackOverflow search via the -s flag. It acts like a natural-language replacement for man pages, with an interactive mode for browsing alternative answers.

## Use cases
- find the unix command to compress a folder from a natural language question
- get stackoverflow answers directly in the terminal
- generate quick bash one-liners or scripts from a prompt
- look up shell syntax without opening a browser
- get powershell command suggestions

## When to choose
- you want natural-language shell command lookup without leaving the terminal
- you frequently search StackOverflow for command-line how-tos
- you want a man-page alternative that accepts plain English queries

## When to avoid
- you need fully offline operation - AI mode depends on an external server with a 5 queries/day free limit
- you want an agent that executes commands for you - how2 only suggests, never runs
- you need a maintained, actively developed tool - the last release was March 2023

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: maintenance
- function: cli, nlp, search-engine, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, artificial-intelligence
- platform: cli, windows
- tags: shell-commands, stackoverflow-search, gpt, terminal-assistant, ai-suggestions, command-line, natural-language-processing, macos, linux, nodejs

## Member repositories
- santinic/how2 (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:29.459388+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:52:54.393192+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/santinic/how2 (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:29.459388+00:00, sha abfa41dcf80b)
  - homepage: https://how2terminal.com (fetched 2026-08-29T08:48:32.444550+00:00, sha bec62aac1922)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/how2 (fetched 2026-08-29T08:48:32.455343+00:00, sha 5607bf63b348)
  - site_page: https://how2terminal.com/pricing (fetched 2026-08-29T08:48:32.453631+00:00, sha fce9373fd497)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.