Skip to content

Introduction

Hike Hike v1.1.3 │ContentLocalBookmarksHistory│/Users/davep/develop/python/hike/README.md │╸━━━━━━━╺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━│━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ││ │▼ Ⅰ Hike│ │├── Ⅱ Introduction│Installing │├── ▼ Ⅱ Installing│ ││   ├── Ⅲ pipx│pipx▂ ││   ├── Ⅲ uv│ ││   ├── Ⅲ Homebrew│The application can be installed using pipx: ││   └── ▼ Ⅲ Other installation metho│ ││   └── Ⅳ X-CMD│ │├── Ⅱ Using Hike│pipx install hike │├── ▼ Ⅱ Features│ ││   └── Ⅲ Editing│ │├── Ⅱ File locations│uv │├── Ⅱ Getting help│ │└── Ⅱ TODO│The package can be install using uv:▂ ││ ││ ││uv tool install hike ││ ││ ││Homebrew ││ ││The package is available via Homebrew. Use the following commands to ││install: ││ ││ ││brew tap davep/homebrew ││brew install hike ││ ││ ││Other installation methods ││ ││The following installation methods have been provided by third parties; ││please note that I can't vouch for them myself so use them at your own risk. ││ > Enter a directory, file, path or command  f1 Help  f2 Nav  f5 Edit  f10 Quit  ^[ Backward  ^] Forward ▏^p Commands

Hike is a Markdown browser for the terminal. It provides the ability to browse for and view local Markdown files, as well as Markdown files that can be downloaded from the web. It also has shortcuts that make it easy to view Markdown files on popular git forges such as GitHub, GitLab, Codeberg and Bitbucket.

Installation

pipx

The application can be installed using pipx:

pipx install hike

uv

The package can be install using uv:

uv tool install hike

Homebrew

The package is available via Homebrew. Use the following commands to install:

brew tap davep/homebrew
brew install hike

Other installation methods

The following installation methods have been provided by third parties.

Warning

Please note that I don't maintain any of these installation methods and so can't vouch for them myself. I can't guarantee that they are up-to-date, neither can I guarantee that they install the original code.

Use them at your own risk.

X-CMD

The application can be installed using x-cmd:

x install hike

Running Hike

Once you've installed Hike using one of the above methods, you can run the application using the hike command.

Command line options

Hike has a number of command line options; they include:

-b, --bindings

Prints the application commands whose keyboard bindings can be modified, giving the defaults too.

hike --bindings

Backward - Move backward through history
    Default: ctrl+left_square_bracket
BookmarkLocation - Bookmark the current location
    Default: ctrl+b
ChangeCommandLineLocation - Swap the position of the command line between top and bottom
    Default: ctrl+up, ctrl+down
ChangeNavigationSide - Change which side the navigation panel lives on
    Default: shift+f2
ChangeTheme - Change the application's theme
    Default: f9
CopyLocationToClipboard - Copy the location to the clipboard
    Default: f4
CopyMarkdownToClipboard - Copy the Markdown source to the clipboard
    Default: shift+f4
Edit - Edit the current markdown document
    Default: f5
Forward - Move forward through history
    Default: ctrl+right_square_bracket
Help - Show help for and information about the application
    Default: f1, ?
JumpToBookmarks - Jump to the bookmarks in the navigation panel
    Default: ctrl+o
JumpToCommandLine - Jump to the command line
    Default: /
JumpToDocument - Jump to the markdown document
    Default: ctrl+slash, ctrl+g
JumpToHistory - Jump to the history in the navigation panel
    Default: ctrl+y
JumpToLocalBrowser - Jump to the local filesystem browser in the navigation panel
    Default: ctrl+l
JumpToTableOfContents - Jump to the table of contents in the navigation panel
    Default: ctrl+t
Quit - Quit the application
    Default: f10, ctrl+q
Reload - Reload the current document
    Default: ctrl+r
SaveCopy - Save a copy of the current document
    Default: ctrl+s
SearchBookmarks - Search the bookmarks
    Default: f3
SearchHistory - Search the history
    Default: shift+f3
ToggleNavigation - Show/hide the navigation panel
    Default: f2

-h, --help

Prints the help for the hike command.

hike --help

usage: hike [-h] [-v] [--license] [-b] [--navigation | --no-navigation]
            [-t THEME]
            [command ...]

Hike -- A Markdown viewer for the terminal.

positional arguments:
  command               The initial command; can be any valid input to Hike's
                        command line.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v, --version         Show version information
  --license, --licence  Show license information
  -b, --bindings        List commands that can have their bindings changed
  --navigation, --no-navigation
                        Show or hide the navigation panel on startup
  -t, --theme THEME     Set the theme for the application (set to ? to list
                        available themes)

v1.1.3

--license, --licence

Prints a summary of Hike's license.

hike --license

Hike - A Markdown viewer for the terminal.  
Copyright (C) 2025 Dave Pearson

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option)
any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for
more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

--navigation

Starts Hike with the navigation panel visible; this overrides and modifies the saved state of the navigation panel.

--no-navigation

Starts Hike with the navigation panel hidden; this overrides and modifies the saved state of the navigation panel.

-t, --theme

Sets Hike's theme; this overrides and changes any previous theme choice made via the user interface.

To see a list of available themes use ? as the theme name:

hike --theme=?

catppuccin-latte
catppuccin-mocha
dracula
flexoki
gruvbox
monokai
nord
solarized-light
textual-dark
textual-light
tokyo-night

-v, --version

Prints the version number of Hike.

hike --version

hike v1.1.3

The startup command

Hike can also take a command on the command line, which will be processed via its own internal command line. This means that you have access to the full array of Hike features. This means you can do something as simple as give the name of a file to view:

hike view-this.md

or you can view a README file hosted on a forge:

hike gh davep/org-davep-2bit

Getting help

A great way to get to know Hike is to read the help screen. Once in the application you can see this by pressing F1.

The Hike Help Screen Hike v1.1.3 │/Users/davep/develop/python/hike/README.md │━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┌─ Help ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ │││ │││ │││ ││Hike v1.1.3│ │🖼  Hike││ │││ │🖼  GitHub Ac││ests🖼 │GitHub Relea│Command Line▂│ │││ ││Use this command line to enter filenames, directories, URLs or commands. Entering a│ │Introduction│filename or a URL will open that file for viewing; entering a directory will open a│ ││file opening dialog starting at that location.│ │Hike is a Ma││down files, │as well as M│┌─────────────┬─────────┬────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────┐│ to view │Markdown fil││Command│Aliases│Arguments│Description││ ││├─────────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │││<directory>│││Open a file browser looking at││ │Installing│││││<directory>││▃ ││├─────────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │pipx││<file>│││View the file at <file>││ ││├─────────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │The applicat││<url>│││View the file at <url>││ ││├─────────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │││bitbucket│bb│<remote-file>¹│Open a file from Bitbucket││ │pipx insta│├─────────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │││bookmarks│b, bm││Jump to the bookmarks││ ││├─────────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │uv││changelog│cl││Show Hike's ChangeLog││ ││├─────────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │The package ││chdir│cd,│<directory>│Change the root directory of the local││ ││││dir, ls││file browser││ ││├─────────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │uv tool in││codeberg│cb│<remote-file>¹│Open a file from Codeberg││ ││├─────────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │││contents│c, toc││Jump to the table of contents││ │Homebrew│├─────────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │││document│d, doc││Jump to the markdown document││ │The package │├─────────────┼─────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │││github│gh│<remote-file>¹│Open a file from GitHub││ ││────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│ │brew tap d│▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔│ │brew insta│ Okay [Esc]│ ││▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁│ │└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │Other installation methods > Enter a directory, file, path or command  f1 Help  f2 Nav  f5 Edit  f10 Quit  ^[ Backward  ^] Forward ▏^p Commands

The help will adapt to which part of the screen has focus, providing extra detail where appropriate; so while the example shown above shows the help related to Hike's command line, here's the help when the markdown document has focus:

Markdown Document Help Hike v1.1.3 │/Users/davep/develop/python/hike/README.md │━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┌─ Help ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ │││ │││ │││ ││Hike v1.1.3│ │🖼  Hike││ │││ │🖼  GitHub Ac││ests🖼 │GitHub Relea│Movement│ │││ ││As well as using the common set of cursor and page keys, the following keys are│ │Introduction│available for movement within the markdown document:▅│ │││ │Hike is a Ma│┌──────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│down files, │as well as M││Key│Description││ to view │Markdown fil│├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │││shift+pgdn, d│Scroll down half a page││ ││├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │Installing││j, e, ⏎│Scroll down one line││▃ ││├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │pipx││f, space, z│Scroll down one page││ ││├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │The applicat││G, >│Scroll to the bottom││ ││├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │││g, <, p, %│Scroll to the top││ │pipx insta│├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │││shift+pgup, u│Scroll up half a page││ ││├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │uv││k, y│Scroll up one line││ ││├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ │The package ││b, w│Scroll up one page││ ││└──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘│ │││ │uv tool in││ ││Viewer│ │││ │Homebrew│This is the main Markdown viewer.│ │││ │The package │Copying to the clipboard│ │││ ││────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│ │brew tap d│▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔│ │brew insta│ Okay [Esc]│ ││▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁│ │└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │Other installation methods > Enter a directory, file, path or command  f1 Help  f2 Nav  f5 Edit  f10 Quit  ^[ Backward  ^] Forward ▏^p Commands

The command palette

Another way of discovering commands and keys in Hike is to use the command palette (by default you can call it with ctrl+p or meta+x).

The Hike Command Palette Hike v1.1.3 │/Users/davep/develop/python/hike/README.md │━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ │▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ │ │Search for commands… │ │🖼  Hike │Backward [^[] │🖼  GitHub AcMove backward through historyests🖼 │GitHub ReleaBookmark Location [^b] │Bookmark the current location │Change Command Line Location [^↑] │IntroductionSwap the position of the command line between top and bottom │Change Navigation Side [shift+f2] │Hike is a MaChange which side the navigation panel lives ondown files, │as well as MChange Theme [f9] to view │Markdown filChange the application's theme │Copy Location To Clipboard [f4] │Copy the location to the clipboard │InstallingCopy Markdown To Clipboard [shift+f4]▃ │Copy the Markdown source to the clipboard │pipxEdit [f5] │Edit the current markdown document │The applicatHelp [f1] │Show help for and information about the application │Jump To Bookmarks [^o] │pipx instaJump to the bookmarks in the navigation panel │Jump To Command Line [/] │Jump to the command line │uvJump To Document [^/] │Jump to the markdown document │The package Jump To History [^y] │Jump to the history in the navigation panel │Jump To Local Browser [^l] │uv tool inJump to the local filesystem browser in the navigation panel │Jump To Table Of Contents [^t] │Jump to the table of contents in the navigation panel │HomebrewQuit [f10] │Quit the application │The package Reload [^r] │▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ │ │brew tap davep/homebrew │brew install hike │ │ │Other installation methods > Enter a directory, file, path or command  f1 Help  f2 Nav  f5 Edit  f10 Quit  ^[ Backward  ^] Forward ▏^p Commands

Questions and feedback

If you have any questions about Hike, or you have ideas for how it might be improved, do please feel free to visit the discussion area and ask your question or suggest an improvement.

When doing so, please do search past discussions and also issues current and previous to make sure I've not already dealt with this, or don't have your proposed change already flagged as something to do.