add whats, explains command (no llm)

Karanveer — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:01:50 +0000

add 'whats' infront of any command and it explains it: flags, sub commands etc in a structutred format whereas something like manpage would throw the entire manual at you

just pure man pages and help output

Q Why use `whats` when we have man pages and --help

Yes you can use them but they throw the entire manual at you whereas you might have just needed one flag, whats outputs a structured format with the definitions you need

Q Is it entirely offline? Does it use LLM

Yes absolutely, it just relies on man pages and if not then --help output of the binary itself,

no it does not use llm at all

Q If it uses regex then why cant i just use grep/sed instead of this?

a grep/sed command cannot find the descriptions of sub commands along with flags, it cant find descriptions of sub commands of sub commands, it probable cant use other sources as a fallback too

Q What about tldr?

Even with tldr, you have to look for the flags you need instead of it providing the ones you need automatically in one go

if you like the idea then maybe star?

https://github.com/iamkaran/whats

DEV Community: Karanveer

add whats, explains command (no llm)

Q Why use whats when we have man pages and --help

Q Is it entirely offline? Does it use LLM

Q If it uses regex then why cant i just use grep/sed instead of this?

Q What about tldr?

Q Why use `whats` when we have man pages and --help