ManT

ManT makes local Unix manual pages easier to explore for people and easier to query for software. It presents the complete page in a responsive terminal UI, then exposes the same structured document through the mant CLI and MCP server for agents and scripts.

Two tools, one document model

Tool	Best for	Highlights
mantui	Reading in a terminal	Complete manual, hierarchy-aware sidebar, in-page links, search, and optional tldr quick reference
mant	Agents and automation	Markdown, text, JSON, generated schemas, semantic option lookups, location-aware search, and MCP stdio

Both tools parse local man and mdoc sources with bundled libmandoc. A system mandoc installation is not required. If an installed tldr client has data for the topic, ManT puts that quick reference before the manual.

Install

Linux release archive

Download the archive for your architecture from the latest release, extract it, and put both executables on PATH:

tar -xzf mant-<version>-linux-<arch>.tar.gz
cd mant-<version>-linux-<arch>
install -Dm755 mantui mant -t ~/.local/bin

mantui locates its companion CLI through MANT_PATH first and then PATH, so keep mantui and mant together when installing from an archive. The release archive includes the relevant bundled-parser license and a SHA-256 checksum is published alongside it.

Build from source

Source builds support Linux and macOS. They require local manual pages and the man command, plus Bun, Rust 1.88+, and a C compiler (GCC on Linux or Clang on macOS by default).

bun install
bun run build
PATH="$PWD/dist:$PATH" mantui git

The build produces dist/mantui and dist/mant. For a fast development loop, use bun run dev -- git; it builds and selects the local mant binary automatically.

Read manuals interactively

mantui git
mantui printf --section 3
mantui tar

The UI always shows the complete manual. Its sidebar mirrors nested sections, can reveal normalized command-line options on demand, follows page-local references, and synchronizes with the reading position after scrolling settles. Use mantui -h for the focused interactive command reference.

Query manuals from agents and scripts

Direct content queries default to Markdown:

mant git
mant printf --section 3 --format text
mant git --format json --compact

Discover a document before retrieving only the content you need. Paths are one-based; 0 is reserved for an available tldr quick reference.

mant gcc --outline
mant gcc --outline sections
mant tar --node acls --format markdown
mant gcc --node 4.2 --node 4.7 --format json

Ask directly about one semantic entry without first walking the outline:

mant tar --explain=--exclude
mant tar --explain exclude

Use the = form when the selector starts with -. --explain returns one option, command, or environment-variable entry; use --node for a whole section or tldr content.

Search returns matches with stable Markdown line and column coordinates, plus the nearest reusable outline path:

mant tar --search=--acls --context 1
mant gcc --search 'worktree|branch' --regex --case smart

For machine integration, the versioned JSON Schema is discoverable from the binary rather than copied from documentation:

mant --schema request
mant --schema all --compact
mant -h

Run mant --update-tldr to refresh data through the installed client when available, otherwise through ManT's private cache.

Connect agents over MCP

Run the same native executable as a read-only MCP server over standard input and output:

mant --mcp

Configure an MCP client with command mant and arguments ["--mcp"]. tools/list exposes generated input and output JSON Schemas for four tools: mant_manual_outline, mant_manual_get, mant_manual_explain, and mant_manual_search. They return the same versioned ManT projections as the direct CLI. The server has no network transport and no mutation tools; its standard output is reserved for MCP JSON-RPC, while diagnostics use standard error.

Architecture

mantui (Bun / OpenTUI React)
  └─ versioned JSON over stdio → mant
                                  └─ mant-core
                                       ├─ mant-ast
                                       └─ libmandoc-rs
                                            └─ vendored libmandoc + private C shim

MCP client ── stdio JSON-RPC → mant --mcp ──→ mant-core

Rust owns source discovery, parsing, the stable AST, tldr integration, and Markdown/text/JSON output. libmandoc-rs exposes an owned, renderer-neutral parse tree; mant-core lowers that tree into ManT's document contract. TypeScript owns only terminal interaction and presentation after validating the native response boundary.

Documentation

• Native architecture and protocol
• Development guide and repository map
• Maintainer release procedure

License

ManT is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. The bundled mandoc source retains its upstream license.