whatisgithub

What is hunspellcolorize?

torvalds/hunspellcolorize — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

★ 344CAudience · developerComplexity · 1/5Setup · easy

In one sentence

A small command line tool that colorizes misspelled words as text scrolls through a pager, handy for catching typos in git commit messages.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((HunspellColorize))
    What it does
      Colorizes typos
      Acts as a pager
      Uses Hunspell
    Tech stack
      C
      Hunspell library
      less pager
    Use cases
      Reviewing commit messages
      Proofreading terminal text
      Git pager integration
    Limitations
      US ASCII only
      No context awareness

Code map

Detail Auto

An interactive map of this repo's files and how they connect — its source is parsed live in your browser. Click Visualize to build it.

filefunction / class

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Set it as your GIT_PAGER so misspelled words in commit messages and diffs stand out visually.

USE CASE 2

Pipe any plain text through it to catch typos before publishing.

USE CASE 3

Use it as a lightweight way to try Hunspell before building spell check into a larger tool.

What is it built with?

CHunspellless

How does it compare?

torvalds/hunspellcolorizejustrach/merjsfractalfir/crustc
Stars344346331
LanguageCCC
Setup difficultyeasymoderatehard
Complexity1/54/55/5
Audiencedeveloperdeveloperdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Requires Hunspell installed on the system for the spell checking to work.

No license information is given in the README.

So what is it?

HunspellColorize is a small command-line tool by Linus Torvalds that highlights spelling mistakes in text as it is displayed in a terminal. It is intended to be used as a pager, meaning it sits between a program that produces text output and the terminal where you read it, coloring any words that appear to be misspelled. The typical use case described in the README is pairing it with git so that commit messages and diffs are spell-checked as they scroll by. You set two environment variables to point your terminal pager and git's pager at this tool, and misspelled words will appear highlighted. The author describes this as a stop-gap solution built because he could not find an existing tool that did this simple job. The longer-term plan is to add spell-checking directly to uemacs, a text editor he maintains, but this smaller project let him test the underlying spell-checking library first. The tool uses Hunspell, a spell-checking library, and only handles plain US ASCII text. It does not understand context, so it will flag words inside file paths, URLs, and code the same as it would flag words in prose.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Show me how to set GIT_PAGER and LESS environment variables so git uses a custom pager like this.
Prompt 2
Explain how Hunspell dictionaries work so I understand what a spell checking pager is testing against.
Prompt 3
Help me write a simple C wrapper around less that highlights misspelled words using a spell check library.
Prompt 4
Walk me through the basics of building a pager program that filters text before showing it in the terminal.

Frequently asked questions

What is hunspellcolorize?

A small command line tool that colorizes misspelled words as text scrolls through a pager, handy for catching typos in git commit messages.

What language is hunspellcolorize written in?

Mainly C. The stack also includes C, Hunspell, less.

What license does hunspellcolorize use?

No license information is given in the README.

How hard is hunspellcolorize to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is hunspellcolorize for?

Mainly developer.

Open on GitHub → Ask about another repo

This repo across BitVibe Labs

Verify against the repo before relying on details.

What are similar repos?