# busyloop/lolcat

Rainbows and unicorns!

Repository: https://github.com/busyloop/lolcat
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/lolcat
Language: Ruby
License: BSD-3-Clause
License Family: permissive
Topics: cli, essentials
Last push: 2024-03-05T16:19:55+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5502, "days_push": 911, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 6567, forks 232 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:45.266915+00:00)

## What it is
lolcat is a Ruby command-line utility that pipes text through a rainbow color gradient, adding colorful output to terminal commands like cat. It's a fun novelty tool for making terminal output rainbow-colored.

## Use cases
- make terminal output rainbow colored
- colorize cat output in the shell
- add fun colors to command-line text
- pipe any text through a rainbow gradient
- spice up terminal demos and screenshots

## When to choose
- you want colorful rainbow text output in your terminal
- you want a lightweight fun CLI utility for demos or dotfiles

## When to avoid
- you need serious syntax highlighting or semantic colorization
- you need accessible, plain-text terminal output

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: maintenance
- function: cli, terminal-ui, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, entertainment
- platform: cli, ruby
- tags: rainbow-colors, terminal-output, fun, text-coloring, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- busyloop/lolcat (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:45.266915+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 2026-08-29T17:43:40.119372+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/busyloop/lolcat (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:45.266915+00:00, sha a2bde5d0ca36)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.