ascii-chord

Display ASCII guitar chord diagrams using ascii_chord — an open-source Rust CLI (MIT license, authored by the same person as this skill).

Required Tools

Tool	Purpose	Check
git	Clone the source repo	git --version
cargo / Rust	Build and run the CLI	cargo --version

Before First Use

This skill clones https://github.com/yzhong52/ascii_chord into /tmp and builds it with cargo run. This executes third-party code on your machine. The repository is open-source (MIT) and authored by the same person as this skill — you can review it at https://github.com/yzhong52/ascii_chord before proceeding.

Installing Rust (if not already installed)

Prefer your system package manager if available:

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install rustup-init && rustup-init

# Or official installer — review https://rustup.rs first
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Note: Installing Rust via rustup will create ~/.cargo and ~/.rustup in your home directory and may modify your shell PATH. This is standard Rust toolchain behavior and persists after the skill runs.

Cloning the repo

Check if already cloned; clone if not:

[ -d /tmp/ascii_chord ] || git clone https://github.com/yzhong52/ascii_chord /tmp/ascii_chord

No further installation step is needed — cargo run builds and runs in one step. The compiled binary is cached in /tmp/ascii_chord/target/ and reused on subsequent runs.

Usage

Single chord:

cd /tmp/ascii_chord && cargo run -- get <CHORD> 2>/dev/null

Multiple chords side by side:

cd /tmp/ascii_chord && cargo run -- list <CHORD1> <CHORD2> ... 2>/dev/null

List all supported chords:

cd /tmp/ascii_chord && cargo run -- all 2>/dev/null

Examples

# Single chord
cd /tmp/ascii_chord && cargo run -- get Am 2>/dev/null

# Multiple side by side (great for progressions)
cd /tmp/ascii_chord && cargo run -- list C G Am F 2>/dev/null

# Full list of supported chord names
cd /tmp/ascii_chord && cargo run -- all 2>/dev/null

Notes

• Suppress build warnings with 2>/dev/null
• Chord names are case-sensitive (Am not am, B7 not b7)
• After first build, subsequent runs are fast (binary is cached by cargo in /tmp/ascii_chord/target/)
• Source repo: https://github.com/yzhong52/ascii_chord (MIT licensed)