wikipedia

name	Wikipedia
description	Look up encyclopedic facts and article text from Wikipedia via the public MediaWiki API

Use wikipedia-cli to search Wikipedia, read a short factual summary, or pull the full plaintext of an article. No account or API key is needed.

Search for an article

wikipedia-cli search "theory of relativity"
wikipedia-cli search "Einstein" --limit 3

Returns each hit's title, page ID, and a plain-text snippet. Use this first to resolve a vague query to an exact article title before calling summary or content.

Get a quick summary

wikipedia-cli summary "Albert Einstein"

Returns the title, a one-line description, the lead-paragraph extract, and the canonical page URL. This is the fastest path to a single factual answer.

Read the full article

wikipedia-cli content "Albert Einstein"
wikipedia-cli content "Albert Einstein" --intro

Prints the plain-text article body. Pass --intro to get only the lead section instead of the whole page — cheaper when you just need the opening.

Tips

• Workflow: wikipedia-cli search "<query>" to find the exact title, then wikipedia-cli summary "<title>" for a fast answer or wikipedia-cli content "<title>" for the full text.
• Every verb takes --lang <code> (default en) to query a non-English edition, e.g. wikipedia-cli summary "Berlin" --lang de.
• Titles are case- and spelling-sensitive; prefer the exact title that search returns over guessing.