# Install gitter-cli with Homebrew

Extremely simple Gitter client for terminals. Version 0.8.5 via Homebrew; verified from local package data.

## Install

```sh
sudo av install brew:gitter-cli
```

Additional install commands:

### macOS

- Homebrew (100%):

```sh
brew install gitter-cli
```

  Evidence: local Homebrew formula metadata

## Package facts

- **Package key:** brew:gitter-cli
- **Package manager:** Homebrew
- **Version:** 0.8.5
- **Source summary:** Extremely simple Gitter client for terminals
- **Homepage:** <https://github.com/RodrigoEspinosa/gitter-cli>
- **Repository:** <https://github.com/RodrigoEspinosa/gitter-cli>
- **Generated:** 2026-08-03T19:37:03+00:00

## Executables

- gitter-cli (alias)

## Install behavior

- Bottle: not available

## Freshness

- Page generated: 2026-08-03
- Package-manager version: 0.8.5
## Project history and usage

gitter-cli is a small terminal client for Gitter rooms. It belongs to the mid-2010s wave of chat and collaboration tools that exposed web service workflows through command-line programs.

### Project history

The public repository was opened in 2015 by Rodrigo Espinosa, and the npm registry records the package publication in April 2015. The README presents the tool as a console Gitter client installed globally with npm and authenticated with a personal access token from Gitter's developer site.

The repository's tag history reached the 0.8 series in 2015, and Homebrew packaged the same 0.8.5 release line. The project remained narrow in scope: room discovery, joining a room, setting an auth token, and sending or reading chat messages from a terminal screen.

### Adoption history

Adoption evidence is modest but source-backed: the project was published to npm, later appeared as a Homebrew formula, and attracted enough GitHub interest to be preserved as a package-manager install. Its value was tied less to a broad ecosystem and more to the convenience of using Gitter without leaving a terminal session.

### How it is used

Practitioners used gitter-cli by installing the global command, authorizing it with a Gitter token, listing rooms, joining a named room, and navigating chat with keyboard bindings. The README also documented an ephemeral `--token` option for sessions where the token should not be persisted.

### Why package nerds care

For package catalogues, gitter-cli is a compact example of a web-service CLI distributed through both npm and Homebrew. It shows how package managers picked up even small collaboration clients when they made a terminal workflow possible.

### Timeline

- 2015: GitHub repository opened.
- 2015: npm package publication recorded.
- 2015: README documented npm global installation and token-based Gitter authorization.
- 2015: v0.8.5 tag recorded for the 0.8 release line.

### Related projects

- Gitter developer API and Gitter chat rooms.
- npm global command-line packages.
- Homebrew formula packaging for small terminal utilities.

### Sources

- <https://api.github.com/repos/RodrigoEspinosa/gitter-cli>
- <https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/gitter-cli>
- <https://github.com/RodrigoEspinosa/gitter-cli>
- <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RodrigoEspinosa/gitter-cli/master/README.md>
- <https://registry.npmjs.org/gitter-cli>


## Security Notes

broad file, network, media, or database tool signal.

- **Geiger risk:** blue / medium
- broad file, network, media, or database tool signal


## Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/gitter-cli.yml](https://github.com/mxcl/pkgdb/blob/main/combined/gitter-cli.yml)


## Sources

- pkg.so package database
- Geiger risk classifier
- curated package history
- pkgdb category and tag curation
- cross-ecosystem install command graph