Install howdoi with Homebrew, dnf, MacPorts, apt

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• howdoi

Project history

Benjamin Gleitzman created howdoi and credits Rich Jones for the idea in the project README and source header. The repository source header describes it as written by Gleitzman, and the README keeps the intentionally terse premise: instant coding answers via the command line.

The project started as a small search-and-scrape utility and evolved into a more featureful CLI. The changelog records PyPI packaging, Python 3 support, multiple answers, color output, caching, alternate search engines, JSON output, saved answers, environment-variable configuration, and later changes caused by search-engine and Stack Overflow markup shifts.

Adoption history

PyPI records the first packaged 0.1.1 upload in November 2012, and Homebrew packages `howdoi` from the PyPI source archive. The package metadata in this batch also records distro packaging through DNF, MacPorts, and Ubuntu, which is unusually broad for a novelty-adjacent developer helper.

The README lists integrations for Slack, Telegram, Discord, Emacs, VSCode, and Alfred. Those integrations show that howdoi's basic idea escaped the original terminal command and became a reusable pattern for asking programming-reference questions from developer surfaces.

How it is used

The core usage is `howdoi QUERY`, with options for selecting result position, returning multiple answers, printing full text, colorizing output, showing only links, choosing a search engine, using JSON output, and saving or viewing stashed answers.

Environment variables such as `HOWDOI_COLORIZE`, `HOWDOI_SEARCH_ENGINE`, and `HOWDOI_URL` let users change default behavior or point searches at other Stack Exchange sites.

Why package nerds care

howdoi is package-nerd catnip because it captures an early-2010s developer workflow in one tiny command: ask the web a coding question, scrape the likely answer, and stay in the shell. It is fragile by design because it depends on search results and answer-page markup, and the changelog reads like a history of keeping that trick alive.

It also helped popularize a genre of terminal knowledge tools that wrap public Q&A sites, then rely on package managers to make the joke useful enough to install everywhere.

Timeline

• 2012: PyPI records the 0.1.1 package upload.
• 2013: The 1.0 changelog marks Python 3 support and Production/Stable project status.
• 2.0.1: The changelog adds JSON output and stashed answers.
• 2.0.8: The changelog records the move from Travis to GitHub Actions and dropping Python 2.7 support.
• 2022: PyPI records the 2.0.20 release, whose changelog adds Python 3.10 support.

Related projects

• Stack Overflow and other Stack Exchange sites are the knowledge sources targeted by the documented query examples and `HOWDOI_URL` setting.
• keep inspired the answer-stashing feature documented in the howdoi README and changelog.
• slack-howdoi, howdoi-telegram, discord-howdoi, emacs-howdoi, VSCode howdoi, and alfred-howdoi are listed by the project as integrations.

Sources

• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/howdoi
• https://github.com/gleitz/howdoi
• https://github.com/gleitz/howdoi/blob/master/CHANGES.txt
• https://github.com/gleitz/howdoi/blob/master/howdoi/howdoi.py
• https://pypi.org/project/howdoi/
• https://pypi.org/pypi/howdoi/json