🦀 ratcrate-cli: Ratatui Ecosystem Crate Discoverer

🛠️ Overview

ratcrate-cli is a fast, terminal-native command-line tool built in Rust for discovering, searching, and getting information about crates within the Ratatui ecosystem. It uses a smart caching strategy to provide near-instant results directly in your terminal. The project follows a standard Rust CLI structure, ensuring clear separation of responsibilities:

• main.rs:

• Application Logic and CLIHandles argument parsing using clap.
• Manages the top-level execution flow, prioritizing immediate exit commands (-t, -c).
• Implements the core filtering and display logic.
• Manages interaction with the external fzf command.

• cache.rs:

• Data PersistenceManages the data source, which is a JSON file hosted remotely.
• Calculates the cache age (set to 1 day maximum).
• Handles fetching data via reqwest and saving/loading data from the OS-specific cache directory using dirs.

• types.rs:

• Data ModelingDefines the data contract for the remote JSON.
• Uses serde to deserialize the data into structured CratePackage and CratesData structs.

[!TIP]

For more information, read "The book"

✨ Features

• Offline First: Caches data locally and only downloads when stale (older than 1 day) or forced.
• Fuzzy Search: Filter crates by name or description using a command-line query.
• Interactive Mode: Seamless integration with fzf for interactive selection and viewing of crate details.
• Statistical Breakdown: Quick summary of total, core, and community packages (-t).
• Flexible Output: Supports both a clean, colored list view and an optional structured table view (--table).

🚀 Installation

Prerequisites

1. Rust Toolchain: You need the latest stable Rust version installed via rustup.
2. fzf (Optional): Required for the interactive mode (-f).

Install from Crates.io

Once the package is published, you can install it globally:

$> cargo install ratcrate-cli

Using Homebrew

$> brew tap rvbug/tap
$> brew install rvbug/tap/doc2quarto

Homebrew cn be installed via /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Build from Source

Clone the repository and build the project using Cargo:

$> git clone [https://github.com/your-username/ratcrate-cli.git](https://github.com/your-username/ratcrate-cli.git)
$> cd ratcrate-cli
$> cargo install --path 

ѫ Usage

Run ratcrate-cli --help for a full list of options.

Total View

$ ratcrate-cli -t

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
✓ Loaded from cache
Total Crates Overview
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Total Crates: 1686
  Core Libraries: 2
  Community Packages: 1684
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Data generated at: 2025-12-04T06:10:38.648089+00:00

Table View

$> cargo run --features=table -- --table

ratcrate (discover ratatui crates)
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
✓ Loaded from cache
+-----------------+---------+---------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| name            | version | description                                                   | downloads | repo                                                |
+-----------------+---------+---------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| ratatui-macros  | v0.6.0  | Macros for Ratatui                                            | 252104    | https://github.com/ratatui/ratatui                  |
+-----------------+---------+---------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| ratatui-widgets | v0.2.2  | A collection of Ratatui widgets for building terminal user i… | 123671    | https://github.com/ratatui/ratatui                  |
+-----------------+---------+---------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| CLI-Rhythm      | v1.0.1  | A simple and functional CLI music player.                     | 5092      | https://github.com/Arklingh/CLI-Rhythm              |
+-----------------+---------+---------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------------------+

Query

$> cargo run -- -q parser

ratcrate (discover ratatui crates)
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
✓ Loaded from cache
Results: 8 / 8
Query: parser
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 1. codex_usage v0.1.1
  Codex and Claude Code telemetry/usage parser, aggregate JSONL events
  into CodeAnalysis results
  Downloads: 262   Repo: https://github.com/Mai0313/codex_usage
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 2. keybinds v0.2.0
  Platform&Framework-agnostic key binding (keyboard shortcut) dispatcher,
  parser, and generator written in Safe Rust.
  Downloads: 9140   Repo: https://github.com/rhysd/keybinds-rs

Roadmap

• "Try" mode
• Debian and Arch Support

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you have suggestions or find a bug, please open an issue or submit a pull request.

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.