GIRLC(1)

💖 GIRLC(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the girlpages Manual — this is the page for girlc, and honestly? she's that girl. 💅

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✨ NAME ✨

girlc — read girly man pages from a girlpages repository 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

girlc [options] [section] page ...
girlc [options] url ...
girlc -k [options] words ...
girlc -f page ...
girlc --versions page ...

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

soooo girlc reads man pages, girlified by girl(1), straight from a girlpages repository (published by girlrepo(1)) — literally the exact same way man(1) reads them from the system. iconic behavior. 🌸

and the way it needs nothing installed but girlc itself?? no model, no cache, no man pages, no configuration file, no libraries (it's one static binary, with root certificates of its own for systems without any) 😭 it just reads any page the repository has, in any version and variant. that's it. that's the whole vibe. which makes it a light way to have the manual in containers, which usually leave man pages out bc of their size (go check CONTAINERS below, iykyk 🫶).

pages are named as for man: [section] page, or page(section), and rfc number (or rfcnumber) for an RFC. a page can also be given by its address on a girlpages site (https://girlpages.dev/girl/1/ls/, or https://girlpages.dev/man/1/ls/ for the original) — and it's read from that site's repository (unless --repo says another), in the variant the address is in (unless --variant says another). 👑

a page named alone is the first by man's section order (1, n, l, 8, 3, 0, 2, 5, 4, 9, 6, 7, and a section's extensions after it: 3 before 3p), in any case, as man finds them.

pages are shown girlified, in a pager if standard output is a terminal. and if the latest version of a page isn't girlified yet? its original is shown, with a note saying which version is, if any. transparent. we love an honest queen. 💖

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -a, --all — show every page by the name, not just the first. all of them. periodt.
• -s, -S, --sections=list — only look in these sections (separated by colons or commas). and same as with man, 3 includes 3p, 3ssl and so on. she contains multitudes ✨
• -k, --apropos — search the repository, as apropos(1) searches the system: for each argument, by the words in pages' names, descriptions and text (a quoted argument of several words finds pages with all of them first), best first, as name (section) - description lines. 🔍
• -f, --whatis — show the one-line description of every page by each name, as whatis(1) does. short and sweet 🎀
• --ngrams — with -k, also find words inside other words (dir finds mkdir and readdir). sneaky. love that. 🙈
• --limit=n — how many pages -k lists for each search (default 100; 0 for all).
• --page-version=version — which version of a page to read: its version number (9.7), where it's from (debian, debian/trixie or debian trixie, for the latest from there), or the start of its source hash. the default is the latest. 💅
• --variant=name — which variant to read: girl (the default), man (the original) or any other the repository has.
• --versions — list a page's versions, with how to pick each, where it's from, and its variants, instead of reading it. she's showing you the whole closet 👗
• --raw — print the page as it's stored (girlpages markup, or plain text for originals) instead of rendering it.
• --markdown — print pages as Markdown: girlified ones as their markup without its colour tags (it's Markdown otherwise), and originals as man prints them, in a code block under their title. for reading pages into other programs, language models among them. 🤖
• --color=when — auto (the default: if standard output is a terminal), always or never. NO_COLOR turns it off.
• -P, --pager=pager — page output with pager (default $GIRLPAGER, $PAGER, then less).
• --repo=url — the repository to read: an http(s) URL, a file:// URL or a directory, either the repository itself or a site with it in repo/. the default is $GIRLC_REPO, else the one girlc was built with: girlpages.dev's, https://girlpages.dev/repo, unless it was built with another (see --help; packagers set it with make girlc GIRLC_REPO=url).
• -h, --help — show a summary of the options.
• -V, --version — show the version.

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✨ CONTAINERS ✨

girlc needs nothing from the system it runs on, so it can be copied into any image, even one built from scratch: 🐳

COPY girlc /usr/local/bin/girlc

it pages with less if there is one, and otherwise prints. and installed as man (a link to it, say), it takes the usual man commands: man ls, man 3 printf, man -k and man -f. shape-shifter energy fr fr 🦋

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✨ ENVIRONMENT ✨

• GIRLC_REPO — the repository to read, if --repo isn't given.
• GIRLPAGES_AGENT — added to the User-Agent of girlc's requests: an agent or tool reading pages with it can say who it is (as the site's llms.txt asks, without requiring it).
• GIRLPAGER, PAGER — the pager, if -P isn't given.
• MANWIDTH — the width to render pages at (by default the terminal's, up to 100).
• NO_COLOR — turns colour off.

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✨ EXIT STATUS ✨

• 0 — Success. 🎉
• 1 — Usage or configuration error. 😭
• 2 — The repository couldn't be read.
• 16 — A page was not found, or a search found nothing.

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✨ EXAMPLES ✨

• girlc ls — show ls(1).
• girlc 3 printf — show printf(3) rather than printf(1).
• girlc -a printf — show every printf: 1, 3 and 3p.
• girlc -k "list directory" — find pages about listing directories.
• girlc --versions ls and girlc --page-version debian/bookworm --variant man ls — see which versions of ls(1) the repository has, then read the original of Debian bookworm's.
• girlc --repo https://mirror.example rfc 9110 — read RFC 9110 from another repository.

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✨ AUTHOR ✨

Naomi Persephone Amethyst <naomi@amethyst.name> 💜

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✨ COPYRIGHT ✨

Copyright © 2026 Naomi Persephone Amethyst. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

girl(1), girlrepo(1), man(1), apropos(1), whatis(1) 🌈

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okay that's the whole page bestie, you ate that 💅✨ this was the girlpages Manual, page GIRLC(1), from girlpages, version dated 2026-10-14. go read some man pages, you're the main character now 👑🫶