peek 👀 — cat on steroids

Smart file previewer for your terminal. JSON pretty • CSV tables • Markdown render • Code with line numbers. Works everywhere — especially on Windows where bat/jq don't exist.

Why peek?

On Linux/Mac you have bat, jq, csvlook... On Windows you only have:

| Windows built-in | what it does | missing | |---|---|---| | type file.txt / Get-Content file.txt | dumps raw text | no colors, no truncation, chokes on big files | | more file.txt | paginated dump | no syntax highlight | | Get-Content -Head 20 / -Tail 20 | first/last N lines | manual, no auto-detect |

peek = one tool for all:

peek file.json              # pretty + colored
peek data.csv               # nice table, 20 rows + summary
peek README.md              # markdown rendered
peek app.js --lines 50      # code with line numbers + header
peek data.json --query users.0.name  # jq-lite
cat data.json | peek        # pipe support
peek ./src                  # directory listing

Install

# global (install once, use everywhere)
npm i -g peek-preview
peek README.md

# one-off without install — npx (recommended)
npx peek-preview README.md
npx peek-preview data.json --query users.0.name

# local development
git clone https://github.com/not0kkinex/peek
cd peek
npm install
npm link          # makes `peek` available globally for dev
peek examples/sample.json

Usage

Usage: peek [options] [file]

Options:
  -j, --json          force JSON mode
  -c, --csv           force CSV mode
  -m, --markdown      force markdown mode
  --raw               show raw markdown
  -n, --number        show line numbers
  --no-color          disable colors
  -l, --lines <n>     first N lines
  --head <n>          first N lines
  --tail <n>          last N lines
  -a, --all           disable 300-line truncation
  -q, --quiet         hide header/footer
  --query <path>      JSON dot query (users.0.name)
  --list              list supported types

Examples

JSON

peek examples/sample.json
# {
#   "users": [
#     { "id": 1, "name": "Ali", "role": "admin" }
#   ]
# }
# — object{2 keys} —
peek examples/sample.json --query users.0.name
# "Ali"

CSV

peek examples/sample.csv
# ┌─────────┬─────┬──────────┬───────────┐
# │ name    │ age │ city     │ role      │
# ├─────────┼─────┼──────────┼───────────┤
# │ Ali     │ 24  │ Istanbul │ developer │
# └─────────┴─────┴──────────┴───────────┘
# 4 rows × 4 cols

Markdown & Code

peek README.md
peek src/cli.js --tail 20
peek big.log --lines 100

Features

• Auto-detect by extension (.json/.csv/.md/.js/.py etc), override with flags
• Smart truncation: 300 lines max by default, hint to use --all
• Binary check: skips \0 files
• Directory mode: peek ./folder lists files with sizes
• Stdin: cat file | peek, curl ... | peek --json
• Cross-platform: Windows / macOS / Linux, no native deps

Comparison

| Tool | Windows built-in? | JSON | CSV | Markdown | Line numbers | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | type / Get-Content | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | bat | ❌ (needs install) | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | | jq | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | peek | ✅ (npm) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |

Development

git clone https://github.com/not0kkinex/peek
cd peek
npm install
node src/cli.js examples/sample.json
npm test
npm pack --dry-run   # inspect package contents

Publish to npm (first time):

npm login
# package name must be available — peek-cli is taken, peek-preview is free
npm publish --access public
# now anyone can run:
npx peek-preview file.json

Run directly from GitHub without publishing:

npx github:not0kkinex/peek README.md

License

MIT