wiki — a fast, fzf-based Wikipedia reader

wiki.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#
# wiki — a fast, fzf-based Wikipedia reader.
#
# Usage:
#   wiki          # English (default)
#   wiki de       # German, fr, es, ...  (any Wikipedia language code)
#
# Type to live-search article titles via Wikipedia's prefixsearch API,
# read the plain-text article in the preview pane, press Enter to open it
# full-screen in your pager. Esc / Ctrl-C to quit.
#
# Dependencies: fzf, curl, jq, and `wikipedia-article-transform`.

set -euo pipefail

api_url() { echo "https://${WIKI_LANG:-en}.wikipedia.org/w/api.php"; }

# --- internal modes (fzf calls the script back through these) -----------

case "${1:-}" in
  --search)                          # prefixsearch -> list of titles
    query="${2:-}"
    [ -z "$query" ] && exit 0
    curl -fsS -G "$(api_url)" \
      --data-urlencode "action=query" \
      --data-urlencode "list=prefixsearch" \
      --data-urlencode "psnamespace=0" \
      --data-urlencode "pslimit=${WIKI_LIMIT:-30}" \
      --data-urlencode "pssearch=${query}" \
      --data-urlencode "format=json" 2>/dev/null \
      | jq -r '.query.prefixsearch[]?.title' 2>/dev/null || true
    exit 0
    ;;
  --show)                            # plain-text article (preview + reader)
    title="${2:-}"
    [ -z "$title" ] && exit 0
    exec wikipedia-article-transform fetch -l "${WIKI_LANG:-en}" -t "$title" -f plain
    ;;
esac

# --- main ---------------------------------------------------------------

WIKI_LANG="${1:-en}"
export WIKI_LANG

for cmd in fzf curl jq wikipedia-article-transform; do
  command -v "$cmd" >/dev/null 2>&1 \
    || { echo "wiki: missing dependency: $cmd" >&2; exit 1; }
done

# Absolute path to this script, so fzf can call back into it.
WIKI_SELF="$(cd "$(dirname "$0")" && pwd)/$(basename "$0")"
export WIKI_SELF

: | fzf \
  --disabled \
  --no-sort \
  --prompt "wiki:${WIKI_LANG}> " \
  --header 'type to search · Enter: read · Esc: quit' \
  --bind 'change:reload:"$WIKI_SELF" --search {q}' \
  --bind 'enter:execute("$WIKI_SELF" --show {} | ${PAGER:-less -R})' \
  --preview '"$WIKI_SELF" --show {}' \
  --preview-window 'right:62%:wrap'

Screenshot:

wikipedia-article-transform can be installed using cargo or uv
Refer https://thottingal.in/blog/2026/03/14/wikipedia-article-transform/

It supports markdown too. So if there is a good terminal based markdown previewer, fzf can use that for --preview option