ZUKAN
zukan(図鑑) is a Monster Hunter bestiary in your terminal. Renders creature and item icons as half-block ANSI art, with an optional info card. All assets are embedded at compile time — a single offline binary, no external data files.
Asset data comes from the companion repo zukan-assets.
Install
Prebuilt binaries will land on the Releases page once CI is wired. For now, build from source:
The first build downloads the latest zukan-assets Release (~6 MB of icon +
data) into the in-tree assets/ directory and embeds it.
For asset refresh, local-checkout overrides, make targets, developing notes, see DEVELOPING.md.
Usage
# Show a monster's icon (sprite → stdout, name → stderr)
# Icon + info card
# Typo-tolerant: rathalas → rathalos
# Multiple monsters, one per block
# Items instead of monsters
# Browse
# Languages: en (default) / ja / zh
Flags
| Flag | Purpose |
|---|---|
<query>... |
One or more monster/item names (fuzzy, typo-tolerant) |
--item |
Query the item database instead of monsters |
--detail |
Show the info card next to the icon |
--no-card |
Icon only (overrides --detail and config) |
--width N |
Icon width in terminal columns (0 = default 32 monsters / 24 items; else 24..=48) |
--lang en|ja|zh |
Display language (auto = use config) |
--random |
Pick a random monster/item |
--game CODE |
Filter --random to a game (e.g. mhw, MHW, mhwilds) |
--list GAME |
List all monsters in a game, then exit |
--hide-name |
Suppress the name line on stderr |
--all / -a |
Render every match instead of just the best one |
Output convention
The sprite goes to stdout, the name to stderr — so you can pipe the art on its own:
|
Configuration
Optional config file at ~/.config/zukan/config.toml (or the platform
equivalent). Explicit CLI flags always win over config.
= "en" # en | ja | zh
= 0 # 0 = built-in defaults (32 monsters / 24 items); else must be 24..=48
= "" # preferred game code for icon selection
= false # show the info card without needing --detail