🧉 Matecito

Because every day deserves a good first line.

Inspired by the tradition of sharing a mate and a conversation.

Every morning I start my day with mate.

I wanted the first thing that appeared in my terminal to be something worth reading before the first command of the day.

At first, Matecito displayed quotes from Argentine authors. Later, I realized that anyone should be able to enjoy the same experience, regardless of where they live or what language they speak.

That simple idea became Matecito.

Matecito is a native Zsh plugin that displays quotes and thoughts from people around the world.

It is simple, works completely offline, has no external dependencies, and is designed to make the first moment in your terminal a little more special.

Features

• 🌎 Automatic locale detection
• 🌍 Quotes from around the world
• 🔁 No repetition
• 🖐️ Manual command
• ⚡ Lightweight and native
• 📡 Completely offline
• 🔌 Framework independent

Example

Compatibility

Matecito is a native Zsh plugin and does not depend on any specific framework.

Environment	Status
Plain Zsh	✅
Oh My Zsh	✅
Zinit	✅

Installation

Plain Zsh

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/uvallasciani/matecito-zsh.git ~/.matecito

Add the plugin to your .zshrc:

source ~/.matecito/matecito.plugin.zsh

Restart your shell:

exec zsh

Oh My Zsh

Clone the repository into your custom plugins directory:

git clone https://github.com/uvallasciani/matecito-zsh.git \
${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/matecito

Add matecito to the plugins list in your .zshrc:

plugins=(... matecito)

Restart your shell:

exec zsh

Zinit

Add the following line to your .zshrc:

zinit light uvallasciani/matecito-zsh

Restart your shell:

exec zsh

Usage

Matecito automatically displays a quote when you start a new interactive shell.

You can display another quote at any time by running:

matecito

You can also use the shorter command:

mate

Localization

System locale

Matecito relies on your operating system locale to determine which language and country should be used.

For example:

LANG=es_AR.UTF-8
LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Automatic detection requires a properly configured system locale.

Matecito does not guess your language or your location. Instead, it follows standard Unix/Linux conventions by using your system locale as the authoritative source of information.

This keeps Matecito consistent with the rest of your shell and operating system.

If your system uses the default locale:

LANG=C

or:

LANG=C.UTF-8

Matecito cannot determine your preferred language automatically because these locales intentionally do not specify a language or country.

This is expected behavior.

Configure your preferred locale, for example:

es_AR.UTF-8

or:

en_US.UTF-8

to enable automatic language and country detection.

Note: Automatic generation of ~/.matecitorc from the detected locale is planned for a future release.

Configuration

You can customize or override the automatically detected settings by editing:

~/.matecitorc

For example:

MATECITO_COUNTRIES="ar,cl,uy"

Limit the quote selection to specific countries.

MATECITO_COUNTRIES="all"

Allow quotes from all available countries.

MATECITO_COUNTRIES="all,-us"

Allow quotes from all countries except the United States.

You can also limit the languages:

MATECITO_LANGS="es"

License

Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.