ttype

Terminal typing practice with code modes, replays, and a wpm chart. Inspired by Monkeytype, but it never leaves your terminal.

Why

• For fun. I wanted to stop tabbing out to a browser to warm up, so I wrote the thing I kept opening.
• Eight text modes, including Go, SQL, Python, shell and regex snippets, where spaces and brackets are part of the practice.
• Every run is recorded keystroke by keystroke and can be watched back at the speed it was typed.
• A per-second wpm chart, a consistency score, and a heatmap of the characters you actually miss.
• Blind mode, zen mode, and a min-wpm threshold that ends the run when you slow down.
• Downloadable word lists, three themes, shell completions, and a man page.
• One static binary. No browser, no runtime, no config file to write by hand.

Install

Linux and macOS

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alirezaudev/ttype/main/install.sh | sh

Or, if you would rather use wget:

wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alirezaudev/ttype/main/install.sh | sh

The script picks the right build for your machine, checks it against checksums.txt, and installs the binary and the man page under /usr/local — or ~/.local, if that is where it can write.

After that, ttype keeps itself up to date. Once a day it looks for a new release in the background, and when there is one it downloads it, checks it against checksums.txt, makes sure it runs, and swaps it in; the new version starts the next time you open ttype. Nothing waits on the network, so it works the same offline. ttype update does it on the spot.

It never touches a copy installed by a package manager or go install, and it won't jump to a new major version, install into a folder you can't write to, or replace itself on Windows yet — in those cases the footer marks the update and u on the result screen tells you what to run. ttype config --update notify keeps the notice without installing, --update off stops checking, and TTYPE_UPDATE does the same for one run.

Windows

Download ttype_<version>_windows_amd64.tar.gz (or _arm64) from the latest release, unpack it, and put ttype.exe somewhere on your PATH.

With Go

go install github.com/alirezaudev/ttype/cmd/ttype@latest

The binary lands in $(go env GOPATH)/bin, so make sure that is on your PATH.

From source

Needs Go 1.26:

git clone https://github.com/alirezaudev/ttype.git
cd ttype
make build
./bin/ttype

Uninstall

ttype uninstall removes the binary and the man page, and --purge takes your history with it. If the binary is already gone:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alirezaudev/ttype/main/uninstall.sh | sh

Typing

ttype                       # 60 second timed test
ttype --time 30             # a shorter one
ttype --words 25            # race a word count instead of the clock
ttype --mode go             # Go snippets instead of prose
ttype --language spanish    # downloaded once, cached after that
ttype --punctuation --numbers
ttype --blind               # no feedback until the run ends
ttype --zen                 # words only, nothing else on screen
ttype --min-wpm 60          # fail the run if you drop below 60
ttype --seed 42             # same text, every time

Eight modes: words sentences sql go backend python shell regex.

In the two word modes, space commits the current word and skips whatever is left of it — the same as the reference app. The code modes keep spaces literal, because indentation is part of what you are practising.

Whatever you set in the settings panel (ctrl+s, or S on the result screen) becomes the default for next time, so the flags are for one-offs.

Your own text

cat "the quick brown fox" | ttype  # anything piped in
ttype --file notes.txt             # a file (--file - reads stdin)
ttype --text "the quick brown fox"
ttype --file notes.txt --words 50  # just the first 50 words
ttype --file notes.txt --time 60   # the clock or the end of the text, whichever comes first

The whole text is typed by default. Newlines and tabs become spaces, colour codes are stripped, and curly quotes and dashes turn into ones a keyboard has. --mode, --language, --punctuation and --numbers don't mix with it.

Custom runs show up in ttype history and ttype stats --mode custom, but never count as personal bests. Add --no-save to keep a run out of history and replays altogether — worth it before piping in anything private, since a replay stores the text.

More of it

Code modes — Go, SQL and shell, then the mode picker

Replays — watch a past run play itself back

Blind, zen and min-wpm

Themes — default, monokai, dracula

Stats — averages, a trend sparkline, CSV out

Help and settings

The CLI — the command list, doctor, and saved defaults

Keys

While typing

Key	Action
backspace	Delete a character
ctrl+backspace ctrl+w alt+backspace	Delete the word and the space after it
space	Next word, skipping the rest of this one
ctrl+o	Toggle the live stats line
ctrl+s	Settings, without leaving the run
tab enter	Restart with fresh text
?	Help — before the first keystroke; after that it is just a character
esc ctrl+c	Quit

On the result screen

Key	Action
tab enter r	Restart
p	Watch the replay
C	Copy the result line
S	Settings
M	Mode picker
L	Language picker
u	Update now, or say what to run when ttype can't
esc q	Quit

Watching a replay (p on the result screen, or enter on a row in ttype history)

Key	Action
space	Pause
1 2 4	Speed
r	Start over
esc q	Back

Commands

Command	What it does
ttype history	Past runs in a table; enter plays one back keystroke by keystroke
ttype stats	Averages and bests — --trend draws a sparkline, --export csv dumps the lot
ttype config	Show or change the saved defaults
ttype languages	List cached word lists; languages download fetches every one
ttype clear	Delete history, languages, or both
ttype doctor	Check the terminal, locale, clipboard and data directory
ttype update	Update to the latest release right now
ttype uninstall	Remove the binary and man page; --purge takes your data too
ttype completion	Completion script for bash, zsh, fish or powershell

Shell completions are also generated into contrib/completions/, and contrib/zsh/ has a plugin that sets them up along with a tt alias.

What the numbers mean

• wpm — correct characters ÷ 5, over the time taken.
• raw — every character typed, right or wrong.
• accuracy — correct keystrokes as you typed them. Backspacing over a mistake fixes the text, not the accuracy.
• consistency — how even your per-second speed was. Steady beats spiky, even at the same average.
• chars — correct / incorrect / extra / skipped.

Personal bests are tracked per configuration, so a 60 second English run is never measured against a 15 second Spanish one with punctuation on.

Where things live

Path	Contents
~/.config/ttype/config.json	Saved defaults
~/.local/share/ttype/history.json	Every run, newest 1000 kept
~/.local/share/ttype/bests.json	Personal bests
~/.local/share/ttype/replays/	Recorded runs, newest 50 kept
~/.local/share/ttype/languages/	Downloaded word lists

XDG_CONFIG_HOME and XDG_DATA_HOME are honoured; NO_COLOR turns the colour off. Persian, Arabic and Hebrew are drawn right to left by ttype, except in terminals that do it themselves (GNOME Terminal and other VTE ones, Konsole, mlterm); if the words still come out backwards, set TTYPE_BIDI=ttype, or TTYPE_BIDI=terminal if they are reversed twice. man ttype has the long version of all of this.