CLI Usage

Reference for the lectito command-line tool.

Basic Syntax

lectito [OPTIONS] [INPUT]

INPUT can be:

• a URL starting with http:// or https://
• a local file path
• - to read from stdin

Common Examples

Extract from a URL

lectito https://example.com/article

Extract from a File

lectito article.html

Read from stdin

curl https://example.com | lectito -

Output Options

-o, --output <FILE>

Write output to a file instead of stdout.

lectito https://example.com/article -o article.md

-f, --format <FORMAT>

Output format. Available values:

lectito https://example.com/article --format text

--json

Force structured JSON output regardless of --format.

lectito https://example.com/article --json

--references

Include a reference table in Markdown output or a references array in JSON output.

lectito https://example.com/article --references

--frontmatter

Include TOML frontmatter in Markdown output.

lectito https://example.com/article --frontmatter

-m, --metadata-only

Output metadata only.

lectito https://example.com/article --metadata-only

--metadata-format <FORMAT>

Metadata output format for --metadata-only. Supported values: toml, json.

lectito https://example.com/article --metadata-only --metadata-format json

Extraction Options

--timeout <SECS>

HTTP timeout in seconds. Default: 30.

--user-agent <UA>

Custom User-Agent for HTTP requests.

-c, --config-dir <DIR>

Directory containing site configuration files.

--char-threshold <NUM>

Minimum character threshold for content candidates. Default: 500.

--max-elements <NUM>

Maximum number of top candidates to track. Default: 5.

--no-images

Strip images from output.

-v, --verbose

Enable verbose logging and timing output.

Shell Completions

--completions <SHELL>

Generate a completion script for bash, zsh, fish, or powershell.

lectito --completions zsh

Help and Version

lectito --help
lectito --version

Output Shapes

Markdown

With --frontmatter, Markdown output starts with TOML frontmatter and then the extracted body.

JSON

--format json and --json emit structured output with:

• metadata
• content.markdown
• content.text
• content.html
• optional references

Metadata-Only

--metadata-only emits either:

• TOML metadata
• JSON metadata

without the extracted body.

Common Workflows

Save a Markdown export

lectito https://example.com/article --frontmatter --references -o article.md

Get JSON for downstream processing

lectito https://example.com/article --json | jq '.metadata.title'

Extract text without images

lectito https://example.com/article --format text --no-images