# ravachol/kew

Music for the Shell. kew is an immersive and fast music player that allows you to listen to music with privacy.

Repository: https://github.com/ravachol/kew
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/kew
Homepage: https://kewplayer.com
Language: C
License: GPL-2.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: linux, music, music-player, terminal, command-line, player, kew, macos, audio-player, windows
Last push: 2026-08-25T23:24:50+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 94/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 93, longevity 86
- inputs: {"age_days": 1204, "days_push": 8, "days_rel": 46, "gap_med": 1, "n_releases_24m": 48}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2991, forks 100 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:34.654683+00:00)

## What it is
kew is a fast, immersive terminal music player written in C that plays local music files with gapless playback, album art, visualizers, and auto-generated playlists from command-line arguments. It is privacy-focused and offline-first, supporting formats like mp3, flac, and opus across Linux, macOS, Windows, and FreeBSD.

## Use cases
- play music from the terminal
- listen to local music files offline with privacy
- play an album by typing its name like 'kew nirvana'
- gapless flac playback in the shell
- manage and edit m3u playlists from the command line
- view album covers and spectrum visualizer in a terminal
- a distraction-free alternative to streaming music apps

## When to choose
- you keep a local music library and want a fast, keyboard-driven player
- you want offline, private listening without algorithmic recommendations
- you live in the terminal and want album art, lyrics, and themes there
- you want a player that needs virtually no setup

## When to avoid
- you primarily stream from Spotify or other online services
- you need HE-AAC, E-AC-3, or ALAC support
- you prefer a graphical mouse-driven music player
- you need a music library manager with tagging features

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: audio-processing, cli, search-engine
- domain: media, developer-tools, privacy
- platform: windows, cli, cross-platform
- tags: terminal-ui, music-player, gapless-playback, spectrum-visualizer, m3u-playlists, lyrics, replay-gain, offline-music, tui, command-line, linux, macos, android

## Member repositories
- ravachol/kew (main) score 94

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:34.654683+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 2026-08-30T07:31:20.864198+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/ravachol/kew (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:34.654683+00:00, sha 5910476d1cd4)
  - homepage: https://kewplayer.com (fetched 2026-08-29T09:46:18.343619+00:00, sha d82046a19fad)
  - site_page: https://kewplayer.com/docs.html (fetched 2026-08-29T09:46:18.352628+00:00, sha 72cad73d39a7)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.