Abbas_CLI

A lightweight CLI tool to aggregate and display news from Reddit and Substack in your terminal, plus a Pomodoro study timer with ASCII clock output.

Features

• ✅ Subscribe to Reddit subreddits
• ✅ Subscribe to Substack newsletters
• ✅ Fetch latest posts from all subscriptions
• ✅ Beautiful terminal formatting with colors and boxes
• ✅ Local JSON configuration storage
• ✅ No API keys required (uses public APIs)
• ✅ Configurable Pomodoro timer (25-50 minute focus sessions)
• ✅ Red ASCII tomato + box-drawing digital clock
• ✅ Pause / resume (in-session keys or abbas pomodoro pause / resume from another terminal)

Installation

npm install -g abbas-cli

Quick Start

Reddit

Subscribe to a subreddit:

abbas reddit subscribe worldnews
abbas reddit subscribe Anthropic
abbas reddit subscribe technology

List your subscriptions:

abbas reddit list

Fetch latest posts:

abbas reddit update

Unsubscribe:

abbas reddit unsubscribe worldnews

Substack

Subscribe to a newsletter (use the subdomain name or full URL):

abbas substack subscribe paulgraham
abbas substack subscribe https://example.substack.com

List your subscriptions:

abbas substack list

Fetch latest posts:

abbas substack update

For paywalled content (if you have a Substack session):

abbas substack update --cookie YOUR_CONNECT_SID_COOKIE

Unsubscribe:

abbas substack unsubscribe paulgraham

Combined

Fetch from both Reddit and Substack at once:

abbas update

Pomodoro

Show your current study/break plan:

abbas pomodoro plan

Set a default study duration (between 25 and 50 minutes):

abbas pomodoro set-study 40

Start a Pomodoro sequence (tomato + digital clock):

abbas pomodoro start
abbas pomodoro start --study 50 --cycles 4

While the timer is running:

• Press p to pause, r to resume, q to quit (or Ctrl+C).
• From another terminal: abbas pomodoro pause and abbas pomodoro resume.

Configuration

Your settings are stored in ~/.abbas-cli/subscriptions.json:

{
  "subreddits": ["worldnews", "Anthropic", "technology"],
  "substacks": ["https://paulgraham.substack.com"],
  "pomodoro": {
    "studyMinutes": 25
  }
}

You can edit this file directly if needed.

Usage

abbas --help
abbas reddit --help
abbas substack --help
abbas update --help
abbas pomodoro --help

Examples

# Subscribe to popular subreddits
abbas reddit subscribe worldnews
abbas reddit subscribe programming
abbas reddit subscribe golang

# Subscribe to tech newsletters
abbas substack subscribe paulgraham

# View all subscriptions
abbas reddit list
abbas substack list

# Fetch new posts
abbas reddit update
abbas substack update

# Fetch from all sources
abbas update

# Study with Pomodoro
abbas pomodoro set-study 45
abbas pomodoro start --cycles 4

Popular Subreddits

• worldnews — Global news
• technology — Tech news
• programming — Programming news
• python — Python content
• golang — Go programming
• webdev — Web development
• learnprogramming — Learning resources
• Anthropic — Claude/Anthropic news

Technical Details

• Reddit API: Uses public Reddit JSON API (reddit.com/r/{subreddit}/new.json)
• Substack API: Uses public Substack API ({newsletter}.substack.com/api/v1/posts)
• Storage: JSON file stored in ~/.abbas-cli/subscriptions.json
• Pomodoro: Adaptive profile based on focus duration (25-50 minutes)
• Requirements: Node.js 18+

License

MIT