lookoutside

Look outside from your terminal. This small Rust CLI shows the current weather around you. With no arguments it estimates your location from your public IP address; you can also pass a place name or exact coordinates.

LOOK OUTSIDE
📍 London, England, United Kingdom

  🌤️  19°C  Mainly clear
     Feels like 18°C · High 23°C / Low 16°C

  💧 Humidity  55%       🌧  Precipitation 0.0mm
  💨 Wind  13.7km/h  NE   ☁️  Cloud cover 44%

Run with npx

Once the package is published to npm:

# Automatically detect your approximate location
npx lookoutside

# Search for a place
npx lookoutside London
npx lookoutside "New York" --units imperial

# Use exact coordinates
npx lookoutside --lat 59.33 --lon 18.07

# Machine-readable output
npx lookoutside Tokyo --json

The package embeds a native Rust binary for the platform on which npm pack/npm publish runs. If that binary does not match the user's platform, the launcher falls back to compiling the included Rust source with Cargo.

Install globally

npm install --global lookoutside
lookoutside

Options

Usage: lookoutside [OPTIONS] [PLACE]

Arguments:
  [PLACE]                City, postal code, or place name

Options:
      --lat <DEGREES>    Latitude; requires --lon
      --lon <DEGREES>    Longitude; requires --lat
  -u, --units <UNITS>    metric or imperial [default: metric]
      --json             Print machine-readable JSON
      --no-color         Disable ANSI colors
  -h, --help             Show help
  -V, --version          Show version

NO_COLOR=1 is also respected.

How location and weather work

• Automatic location: ipwho.is maps the caller's public IP to an approximate city and coordinates. No API key is needed. IP geolocation can be inaccurate, especially with VPNs, mobile networks, or corporate gateways.
• Place search: the Open-Meteo Geocoding API resolves a supplied name.
• Weather: the Open-Meteo Forecast API supplies current conditions and today's summary.

Automatic detection sends the caller's public IP to ipwho.is as part of the normal network request. Pass a place or coordinates if you prefer not to use IP geolocation. Review each provider's limits and terms before high-volume or commercial use.

Develop locally

Requirements: Rust 1.70+ and Node.js 18+.

cargo run -- London
cargo test
cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings

# Exercise the npm launcher
npm run build
npm run stage
node npm/bin/lookoutside.js --help

Package for npm

Keep the versions in Cargo.toml and package.json synchronized, then run:

npm pack
npm publish

The prepack script creates an optimized Rust build and stages it as npm/bin/lookoutside-<platform>-<arch> before npm creates the tarball.

License

MIT