Browse BBC News like a hacker.

A terminal-based BBC News reader built with Rust and ratatui, featuring a compact, numbered list interface with vim-like navigation.

Note: This is a complete rewrite of bbcli in Rust.

installation

Using eget (Recommended)

Download pre-built binaries:

eget hako/bbcli

GitHub Releases

Download pre-built binaries for your platform from GitHub Releases:

Available for:

• Linux: x86_64 (gnu/musl), aarch64 (gnu/musl)
• macOS: x86_64 (Intel), aarch64 (Apple Silicon)
• Windows: x86_64
• BSD: FreeBSD, NetBSD

Using cargo-binstall (Also Recommended)

Fast binary installation without compiling:

# Install cargo-binstall first if needed
# See: https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall

cargo binstall bbc-news-cli

From crates.io

# Install from crates.io
cargo install bbc-news-cli

From source

git clone https://github.com/hako/bbcli
cd bbcli
cargo build --release
cargo install --path .

terminal compatibility

bbcli works best in modern terminals with full Unicode and image protocol support:

Recommended terminals:

• WezTerm - Excellent image support (Sixel, Kitty, iTerm2)
• Ghostty - Fast, GPU-accelerated with Kitty protocol
• Rio - Modern, hardware-accelerated
• Alacritty - Fast, minimal (Halfblocks mode for images)
• Kitty - Full Kitty graphics protocol support
• iTerm2 (macOS) - Inline images protocol

Image protocols:

• Press p to cycle through: Auto / Halfblocks / Sixel / Kitty
• Auto mode detects your terminal's capabilities
• Halfblocks works in all terminals (Unicode-based)

usage

# Launch interactive TUI
bbcli

# Or use CLI mode (see below)
bbcli list

cli mode:

bbcli includes a powerful CLI mode for quick access to headlines and articles without launching the full TUI.

List Headlines

# List top stories
bbcli list

# List from specific feed
bbcli --feed world list
bbcli --feed technology list
bbcli --feed business list

Open Article in Browser

# Open article #3 in browser
bbcli open 3

# Open from specific feed
bbcli --feed technology open 1

Show Article in Terminal

# Read article #2 in terminal (reader mode)
bbcli show 2

# Show article from specific feed
bbcli --feed world show 5

Available Feeds

Use -f or --feed with any of these feeds:

• top (default) - Top Stories
• world - World News
• uk - UK News
• business / biz - Business
• politics / pol - Politics
• health - Health
• education / edu - Education & Family
• science / sci - Science & Environment
• technology / tech - Technology
• entertainment / ent - Entertainment & Arts
• Regional: england, scotland, wales, northern ireland
• International: africa, asia, europe, latin america, middle east, us & canada

tui keyboard shortcuts:

Navigation

Key	Action
j / ↓	Scroll down
k / ↑	Scroll up
G	Scroll to bottom
l	Go to latest (top)

Actions

Key	Action
o	Open article in browser
O	Open article in new tab
Space	Jump to current ticker article
r	Refresh news

Views

Key	Action
Tab	Toggle preview pane
a / Enter	Open full article view
f	Open feed selector
?	Toggle help menu

Settings

Key	Action
s	Cycle sort order (Default / Newest First / Oldest First)
t	Toggle date format (humanized / absolute)
T	Cycle theme (light / dark)
p	Cycle image protocol (Auto / Halfblocks / Sixel / Kitty)

Other

Key	Action
q / Esc	Quit

Feed Menu

Press f to open the feed menu and switch between different BBC News feeds:

• Top Stories (default)
• World
• UK
• Business
• Politics
• Health
• Education & Family
• Science & Environment
• Technology
• Entertainment & Arts
• Regional feeds (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales)
• International regions (Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, US & Canada)

Navigate with j/k or arrow keys, press Enter to select, f or Esc to close.

Features

Preview Pane

Press Tab to toggle the preview pane, which displays a 80/20 split showing:

• Article image (with configurable image protocol support)
• Title and description
• Publication date and feed name

Full Article View

Press Enter or a to open the full article view with reader mode:

• Clean, distraction-free article text
• Scrollable with j/k or arrow keys
• Press Tab, Enter, or Esc to return to list view

Story Sorting

Press s to cycle through sort orders:

• Default: RSS feed order (as received)
• Newest First: Sort by publication date, newest at top
• Oldest First: Sort by publication date, oldest at top

Sort order persists across manual and automatic refreshes.

Ticker Navigation

The footer displays breaking news headlines from Top Stories feed, rotating every ~10 seconds. Press Space to instantly jump to the current ticker article in the feed.

Auto-Refresh

The app automatically refreshes news every 5 minutes, keeping stories visible during refresh (no loading placeholder).

Themes

Press T to cycle between light and dark themes. The default theme can be set in your config file.

Offline Mode

bbcli automatically caches feeds and articles to disk for offline reading:

To clear the cache:

rm -rf ~/.bbcli/cache/

configuration:

Custom keybindings can be defined in either:

$HOME/.bbcli

Or:

$HOME/.config/bbcli

See example-config.toml for all available options:

# Theme: "light" or "dark" (default: "dark")
theme = "dark"

[keybindings]
quit = 'q'
open = 'o'
open_new_tab = 'O'
refresh = 'r'
latest = 'l'
scroll_up = 'k'
scroll_down = 'j'
scroll_bottom = 'G'

Copy the example config:

cp example-config.toml ~/.bbcli

Or create your own custom configuration with preferred keybindings and theme.

credits

Inspired and extended by the original bbcli python version.

license

MIT