Overview

tldr is a community-maintained collection of simplified and practical help pages for command-line tools. Instead of the dense, comprehensive manual pages that can span hundreds of lines, tldr provides concise examples for each command — perfect for developers and system administrators who need to remember a specific flag or usage pattern quickly. The project features community-maintained pages covering thousands of commands, accessible through multiple command-line clients.

Key Features

• Practical examples: Each command page focuses on real-world usage scenarios rather than exhaustive option lists.
• Multi-platform coverage: Pages for Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, and common CLI tools.
• Multiple client options: Official Node.js client, plus community clients in Python, Rust, Go, and more.
• Community maintained: Pages are reviewed and updated by thousands of contributors.
• Lightning fast: Pages load instantly — no network required once cached.

Why Use It

Traditional man pages are comprehensive but overwhelming when you just need a quick reminder. tldr distills each command down to 4-8 common usage examples with clear descriptions, making it the fastest way to recall syntax for tar, grep, sed, curl, and hundreds of other tools. It is also an excellent learning resource for developers new to the command line.

Use Cases

• Quick reference: Check command syntax without sifting through man pages.
• Onboarding: Help new team members learn command-line tools faster.
• Scripting: Verify flags and argument order while writing shell scripts.

Platform

Cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows, Android)

Licence

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0)

Website

github.com/tldr-pages/tldr