ts-quick-ref

Interactive CLI for JavaScript (MDN) and TypeScript documentation reference.

Quickly look up JavaScript APIs and TypeScript concepts directly from your terminal with offline caching and a beautiful interactive interface.

Installation

npm install -g ts-quick-ref

Or run directly with npx:

npx ts-quick-ref Array.map

Usage

Quick Lookup

# JavaScript (MDN) documentation
ts-quick-ref Array.map
ts-quick-ref Promise.all
ts-quick-ref Object.keys
ts-quick-ref fetch

# TypeScript documentation
ts-quick-ref generics
ts-quick-ref interfaces
ts-quick-ref utility
ts-quick-ref narrowing

Specify Source

# Force JavaScript/MDN source
ts-quick-ref --source js Array

# Force TypeScript source
ts-quick-ref --source ts generics
ts-quick-ref -s typescript mapped

Search

# Search across all documentation
ts-quick-ref search "array methods"
ts-quick-ref s "promise"

# Search specific source
ts-quick-ref search --source mdn "fetch api"
ts-quick-ref search --source ts "type guards"

# Limit results
ts-quick-ref search --limit 5 "string"

# Offline search (cached docs only)
ts-quick-ref search --offline "array"

Interactive Mode

Launch the interactive TUI for browsing documentation:

ts-quick-ref
ts-quick-ref -i
ts-quick-ref --interactive

Keyboard shortcuts:

• Enter - Search / Select
• ↑↓ - Navigate results
• Esc - Go back
• q - Quit

Cache Management

# View cache statistics
ts-quick-ref cache stats

# Pre-fetch common documentation for offline use
ts-quick-ref cache update

# Clear the cache
ts-quick-ref cache clear

Commands

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | ts-quick-ref <query> | Look up documentation for a topic | | ts-quick-ref search <query> | Search documentation | | ts-quick-ref cache <action> | Manage documentation cache |

Options

| Option | Description | |--------|-------------| | -s, --source <source> | Source to search: mdn, js, ts, typescript | | -r, --raw | Output raw markdown without terminal formatting | | -i, --interactive | Start interactive TUI mode | | -V, --version | Show version number | | -h, --help | Show help |

Supported Topics

JavaScript (MDN)

• Global objects: Array, Object, String, Number, Promise, Map, Set, Date, RegExp, JSON, Math, Error
• Array methods: Array.map, Array.filter, Array.reduce, Array.find, Array.forEach
• Object methods: Object.keys, Object.values, Object.entries, Object.assign
• Promise methods: Promise.all, Promise.race, Promise.allSettled
• Statements: for, if, const, let, async, await, class, import, export
• Operators: ... (spread), ?. (optional chaining), ?? (nullish coalescing)

TypeScript

• Basics: types, basics, everyday-types
• Type System: generics, interfaces, type, union, intersection
• Narrowing: narrowing, type-guards, never
• Advanced Types: keyof, typeof, conditional, mapped, template
• Other: classes, modules, functions, objects, tuples

How It Works

1. Hybrid Caching: Documentation is fetched from MDN and TypeScript sources, then cached locally in SQLite for fast offline access
2. Smart Lookup: Searches use fuzzy matching to find the best results
3. Terminal Rendering: Markdown is rendered with syntax highlighting for readability

Cache Location

Documentation is cached at:

• Linux/macOS: ~/.ts-quick-ref/cache.db
• Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.ts-quick-ref\cache.db

Cache expires after 7 days and is automatically refreshed on next lookup.

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18.0.0

Attribution

This tool fetches and caches documentation from the following sources:

• JavaScript documentation: MDN Web Docs, licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5
• TypeScript documentation: TypeScript Handbook, © Microsoft, licensed under Apache 2.0

This project is not affiliated with Mozilla or Microsoft.

License

MIT