This is my last contribution to GitHub.

I removed all other repositories from my account, and do not expect much disruption. To the few who contributed, thank you. I’m happy to verify your contributions when you need a reference, but I will remove your code from my distributions to respect your rights and simplify licensing.

HaTTaH is my new shell-centric medium backed by the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS).

Set these up:

• A POSIX-compliant shell
• curl or wget
• Kubo

You may wish to opt out of Kubo telemetry by setting IPFS_TELEMETRY=off in the daemon’s environment. The developers presume your consent by default, so watch out for related changes when updating.

Expect hangs

Like a BitTorrent client, Kubo needs to find peers that upload what you request. Kubo does so quietly at time of writing, so some of the hattah commands defined later may hang without feedback during peer discovery.

For those of you who find my node and wish to be supportive, use hattah pin to—in BitTorrent lingo—seed my content. That means you offer some of your bandwidth to make my content more available to peers. Use hattah nip to stop further distribution. The hattah distribution commands only operate on hattah ls output, but you can use the underlying ipfs pin interface to handle any object.

In case there’s another problem, check your logs.

Web Service

https://hattah.top is a web service with only a GET / endpoint, with trust in LetsEncrypt. A POSIX shell command pipeline expands code like a macro.

curl -s https://hattah.top | sh -s | sh -s ... [| ...]
^                            ^       ^
|                            |       |
Print latest client download command.|
                             |       |
                             Print latest client.
                                     |
                                     Use content.

The Web API and CLIs of the first two sh -s pipe segments are forever stable. The attached mkhattah script updates clients without trusting code as the pipeline syntax does.

You only need the web service to find the latest client. All clients function when the web service is down.

Client Interface

Download mkhattah and run sh mkhattah to download the latest client. Call the client hattah to activate this interface.

• hattah and hattah help print a manual.
• hattah tos prints terms of service bound to the same client implementing said tos command. If you don’t agree to terms in a client, then don’t use that client to distribute data.
• hattah ls STRING ... prints indexed contents, filtered by substring matches. One line of output represents one distributable object. Given no arguments, no filter applies. Otherwise, this prints lines that contain every STRING as a substring.
• hattah get STRING ... downloads content to the working directory, filtered by the rules of ls. Downloads always use file names shown in ls output, but get will not overwrite files.
• hattah pin STRING ... pins filtered content to your IPFS node for redistribution.
• hattah nip STRING ... unpins filtered content.
• hattah cat STRING ... prints concatenation of filtered content.

I apply tags so commands like hattah ls \\video or hattah ls '\video' select matching content.

Maximalist Defaults

Most hattah subcommands get their scope of work from hattah ls. The latter prints a complete table of contents when given no arguments, so consider these implications.

• hattah cat, given no arguments, prints all content as one unformatted blob. A PDF might follow an MP4. hattah ls prints enough data to derive byte offsets.

> backup.bin hattah cat
> backup.idx hattah ls
< backup.idx read cid name size words
< backup.bin dd of=first.bin bs=1 count=$size
# Use accumulated lengths to find subsequent offsets.

• hattah get downloads everything in a feed. Given a dedicated download directory, you will only download content under new names. This does not imply that you have the latest version of existing files.

• hattah pin mirrors the content known to the client, and hattah nip takes down that mirror.

Support

Donations are unexpected, appreciated, and not tax deductible.

You will also find offers in HaTTaH content.

Revenue supports hosting and content production.

POSIX Shell Access

To access a POSIX-compliant shell, use the instructions from the subsection matching your platform.

Windows

1. Enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux.
2. Press Win+R. You will see the Run dialog.
3. Type wsl and press ENTER. You will see a new prompt in a new window.
4. Type exec /bin/sh in the new prompt, and press ENTER. You will see a new prompt in the same window.

macOS

1. Open a terminal emulator. One way is to open Spotlight with Command+Space, then type “Terminal” without quotes.
2. Run exec /bin/sh in a console or terminal emulator. You will see a new prompt.

Other Unix-like systems

1. Either
   • Switch to a console using Alt+F<1-12> or Control+Alt+F<1-12>0
   • Open a terminal emulator (shortcuts include Control+Alt+T, or Super+ENTER).
2. Run exec /bin/sh in when prompted. You will see a new prompt.

Notes for all Unix-like environments

• If a user account’s shell is already /bin/sh, then exec /bin/sh is redundant.
• If you use Bash, then set POSIXLY_CORRECT. The value can be empty.
• Your system might link /bin/sh to a non-POSIX shell.
• If you are not sure if you have a compliant shell, consider using the ash implementation in BusyBox.

(Optional) Why not use IPNS?

I don’t want to manage mutable bindings in addition to the DNS dependency I’m always going to have. I’d rather mass produce immutable, collectible, portable clients for technical audiences and bots.

Legal

© 2026 Sage Lennon Gerard

Preserve all copyright notices.

I won’t attach a license to this repository because I expect you ask for one. To best protect our rights, contact me to sign a bill of materials. I am happy to comp the AGPL for mkhattah.