wa-cli

wa-cli is a command line tool for querying the Wolfram Alpha Short Answer and Simple API directly from your terminal.

Features

• Text and Graphical Response: Instant answers from the Wolfram Alpha API, including both text-based and graphical outputs.
• API Key Management: Easily configure your Wolfram Alpha App ID directly from the command line.
• Cross-Platform Configuration: Adheres to XDG standards for configuration file locations

Usage

wa-cli query "<query>"

You can also request a image answer using the --simple flag Note: Will not work within tmux, refer to this issue

Example

wa-cli query "What is the capital of France?"
> Paris, Île-de-France, France

Installation

From Source

git clone https://github.com/justin-gill/wa-cli.git
# Build and install
cd wa-cli
cargo install --path .

Configuration

You must first have a Wolfram Alpha App ID to use this tool. To get an App ID, visit the Wolfram Alpha Developer Portal and create an account. You will have 2,000 free queries per month.

To configure your Wolfram Alpha App ID, run:

wa-cli configure

Follow the prompt to enter your App ID. The App ID will be stored in a config.toml in your XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wa-cli, or ~/.config/wa-cli by default.

Dependencies

• Cargo
• libsixel (for image output on some terminals)

Recommended

I would personally recommend using functions in your shell to make querying easier. Here is an example for bash:

function was() {
    ~/.cargo/bin/wa-cli -s query "$*"
}

function wa() {
    ~/.cargo/bin/wa-cli query "$*"
}