Another gem discovered: Nutri CLI — Track your diet quietly in the terminal
To be honest, I've been hunting for a diet tracking tool that doesn't waste time, doesn't pop up annoying windows, and doesn't collect my private data. Those mobile apps are either overly flashy, require payment, or are littered with endless ads. Then yesterday, while browsing GitHub, I stumbled upon the voydz/nutri project — and it instantly clicked. This is exactly what I wanted!
This tool is incredibly straightforward: a command-line food and water tracker. Open your terminal, type a few commands, and you can log what you ate today and how much water you drank. All data stays local, so you don't have to worry about your information being sold. Plus, since it's a CLI, it's blazing fast — starting up in just a few milliseconds, way quicker than launching a mobile app.
Actually, I used an app called "WaterMinder" before. Its interface looked nice, but every time I opened it, I had to wait for an ad to load. I eventually uninstalled it. With Nutri, I just type nutri add water 500 directly in iTerm2, and that's it — 500ml of water recorded. Then if I want to see today's total, nutri summary shows it immediately. It feels like going back to the pure days of coding, haha.
How to install? Two steps and done
This project is released as a GitHub Skill, so the installation is unified. You just need to run one line in your terminal:
npx skills add https://github.com/voydz/nutri --skill nutriThis assumes you already have Node.js and npx installed. If not, go to the official website to download them — it takes a minute or two. After installation, the skill is registered. If you're using a platform that supports Skills (like a certain CLI runtime environment), you can simply execute Nutri inside it. Alternatively, you can run the source code directly from the repository for more flexibility.
I also took a look at the SKILL.md file (the core definition in the project), which roughly defines how to interact. Although the page only shows the file name, by convention it should include the skill's name, command entry, and help information. Unfortunately, GitHub doesn't display the full content, otherwise I could share more details.
Practical usage experience
I tried using it for a whole day to record what I ate. Like this:
nutri add food "apple" 200(an apple about 200g)nutri add food "chicken breast" 150nutri add water 300nutri add water 500nutri show --todayto view today's records
It stores all this data in a JSON file, for instance ~/.nutri/data.json. Since I'm a developer myself, I wrote a small script that automatically sends a command-line notification each morning to remind me to drink water. Imagine you're writing code, and suddenly the screen flashes: "Time to drink! You've only had 800ml so far." Pretty cool, right?
The project is still evolving, so the features are limited, but basic recording and querying work just fine. I think it's especially suitable for:
- Programmers who are addicted to the console
- People who want to try quantified self but don't like complex interfaces
- Those who care about data privacy and want all records completely offline
- Tech-savvy users who like to modify code and add features themselves
A few minor complaints and improvement ideas
Honestly, I think the default storage format could be improved, such as supporting export to CSV or Markdown tables, making it easy to import into other analysis tools. Also, if a simple nutrition estimation were added (like approximate calories based on food type), it would be absolutely fantastic. But it's open source, so I understand the author might just be making a toy for personal use. I'm grateful it exists.
I encountered one small issue during the first installation: npx prompts you to trust the source by default. I clicked 'yes' and it was fine. However, if your network environment has restrictions, you might need to configure an npm proxy first. Otherwise, everything went smoothly.
Summary in one sentence
If you're the type of person who hates installing mobile apps and loves pure command-line operations, then Nutri is a skill worth trying. It's light, pure, and gives you complete control over your data. From now on, how many cups of water you've drunk and how much food you've eaten can be seen at a glance in the terminal — more effective than any fancy app.
