cowsay-dotnet 1.0.0

cowsay-dotnet

A faithful .NET reimplementation of the classic Unix cowsay and cowthink programs, originally created by Tony Monroe and maintained by the cowsay-org project led by Andrew Janke.

cowsay-dotnet generates ASCII art of a cow (or other characters) saying or thinking a given message. It operates much as the original cowsay does, and is written in the same spirit of silliness -- but in modern C# targeting .NET 10.

 --------------- 
< Hello, World! >
 --------------- 

        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

Features

• Full compatibility with the original cowsay man page specification
• cowsay and cowthink commands (speech and thought bubbles)
• All 8 preset cow modes: -b Borg, -d Dead, -g Greedy, -p Paranoid, -s Stoned, -t Tired, -w Wired, -y Youthful
• Custom eyes (-e) and tongue (-T) support
• Configurable word wrap width (-W) and no-wrap mode (-n)
• 48 classic cow files included (all original cowfiles from the cowsay distribution)
• COWPATH environment variable support for custom cow file directories
• PowerShell module with Get-Cowsay and Get-Cowthink cmdlets
• Standard input piping support
• Cross-platform: Windows, macOS, and Linux
• Self-contained single-file binaries -- no .NET runtime required to run

Installation

cowsay-dotnet is available as self-contained, single-file binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Choose the installation method that suits your platform.

Linux

Debian / Ubuntu (.deb)

sudo dpkg -i cowsay-dotnet_1.0.0_amd64.deb

Fedora / RHEL / CentOS (.rpm)

sudo rpm -i cowsay-dotnet-1.0.0-1.x86_64.rpm

Snap

sudo snap install cowsay-dotnet

Arch Linux (.pkg.tar.zst)

sudo pacman -U cowsay-dotnet-1.0.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

macOS

Homebrew

brew tap cowsay-dotnet/tap
brew install cowsay-dotnet

macOS Installer (.pkg)

Download and run the .pkg installer from the Releases page.

Windows

MSI Installer

Download and run the .msi installer from the Releases page. The installer adds cowsay and cowthink to your system PATH.

Chocolatey

choco install cowsay-dotnet

WinGet

winget install cowsay-dotnet.cowsay-dotnet

PowerShell Gallery

Install-Module -Name Cowsay.PowerShell

From Source

Requires .NET 10 SDK.

git clone https://github.com/cowsay-dotnet/cowsay-dotnet.git
cd cowsay-dotnet
dotnet build
dotnet run --project src/Cowsay.Cli -- "Hello from source!"

To publish self-contained binaries:

# Publish for your current platform
pwsh build/publish.ps1 -Rid win-x64          # Windows x64
pwsh build/publish.ps1 -Rid linux-x64        # Linux x64
pwsh build/publish.ps1 -Rid osx-arm64        # macOS Apple Silicon

# Publish all platforms
pwsh build/publish.ps1

Usage

Basic Usage

cowsay "Hello, World!"

 --------------- 
< Hello, World! >
 --------------- 

        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

Cowthink (Thought Bubbles)

cowthink "Moo..."

 -------- 
( Moo... )
 -------- 

        o   ^__^
         o  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

Choose a Different Cow File

cowsay -f tux "Linux is fun!"

 --------------- 
< Linux is fun! >
 --------------- 

   \
    \
        .--.
       |o_o |
       |:_/ |
      //   \ \
     (|     | )
    /'\_   _/`\
    \___)=(___/

Preset Modes

cowsay -d "I'm not feeling well..."     # Dead mode (xx eyes)
cowsay -b "Resistance is futile"        # Borg mode (== eyes)
cowsay -g "Show me the money"           # Greedy mode ($$ eyes)
cowsay -s "Far out, man..."             # Stoned mode (** eyes)

 ------------------------- 
< I'm not feeling well... >
 ------------------------- 

        \   ^__^
         \  (xx)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
             U  ||----w |
                ||     ||

Custom Eyes and Tongue

cowsay -e "OO" -T "U " "Custom face!"

Piping from Standard Input

echo "Piped message" | cowsay
fortune | cowsay -f dragon

No-Wrap Mode

cat long-file.txt | cowsay -n

List Available Cow Files

cowsay -l

Set Custom Wrap Width

cowsay -W 60 "This message will wrap at 60 columns instead of the default 40."

COWPATH

Set the COWPATH environment variable to add custom cow file directories:

export COWPATH=/my/custom/cows:/another/cow/dir
cowsay -f my-custom-cow "Hello!"

Command-Line Options

Option	Long Form	Description
-f	--file	Cowfile name or path
-e	--eyes	Custom eye string
-T	--tongue	Custom tongue string
-W	--width	Word wrap column width (default: 40)
-n	--no-wrap	Disable word wrapping; read from stdin
-l	--list	List available cowfiles
-b		Borg mode (== eyes)
-d		Dead mode (xx eyes, U tongue)
-g		Greedy mode ($$ eyes)
-p		Paranoid mode (@@ eyes)
-s		Stoned mode (** eyes, U tongue)
-t		Tired mode (-- eyes)
-w		Wired mode (OO eyes)
-y		Youthful mode (.. eyes)

PowerShell Module

The Cowsay.PowerShell module provides Get-Cowsay and Get-Cowthink cmdlets for use in PowerShell 7+.

Installation

Install-Module -Name Cowsay.PowerShell

Usage

Get-Cowsay -Message "Hello from PowerShell!"
Get-Cowthink -Message "Thinking..." -Cow tux
Get-Cowsay -Message "I'm dead" -Dead
Get-Cowsay -List

Parameters

Parameter	Description
-Message	The message to display
-Cow	Cowfile name (default: default)
-Eyes	Custom eye string
-Tongue	Custom tongue string
-Width	Word wrap column width (default: 40)
-NoWrap	Disable word wrapping
-List	List available cowfiles
-Borg, -Dead, -Greedy, -Paranoid, -Stoned, -Tired, -Wired, -Youthful	Preset cow modes

Available Cow Files

cowsay-dotnet ships with 48 classic cow files:

beavis.zen    bong          bud-frogs     bunny         cheese
cower         daemon        default       dragon        dragon-and-cow
elephant      elephant-in-snake           eyes          flaming-sheep
ghostbusters  head-in       hellokitty    kiss          kitty
koala         kosh          luke-koala    mech-and-cow  meow
milk          moofasa       moose         mutilated     ren
satanic       sheep         skeleton      small         sodomized
squirrel      stegosaurus   stimpy        supermilker   surgery
telebears     three-eyes    turkey        turtle        tux
udder         vader         vader-koala   www

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• .NET 10 SDK

Build

dotnet build

Run Tests

dotnet test

The test suite includes 189 tests across 4 test projects, covering the core domain, application layer, infrastructure, and integration tests. Tests use xUnit v3 with Shouldly assertions and Moq for mocking.

Publish

# Publish all projects for a specific RID
pwsh build/publish.ps1 -Rid win-x64

# Publish all projects for all 9 supported RIDs
pwsh build/publish.ps1

Supported Runtime Identifiers (RIDs)

Platform	RIDs
Windows	win-x64, win-x86, win-arm64
macOS	osx-x64, osx-arm64
Linux	linux-x64, linux-arm, linux-arm64

Package All Formats

The cross-platform packaging orchestrator builds all package formats from a single Windows machine using WSL Ubuntu for Linux formats:

# Install packaging tool prerequisites (one-time)
pwsh build/install-packaging-tools.ps1

# Build all package formats for all RIDs
pwsh build/package-all.ps1

# Build specific formats for a specific RID
pwsh build/package-all.ps1 -Rid linux-x64 -Formats deb,rpm
pwsh build/package-all.ps1 -Rid win-x64 -Formats msi,choco

Project Architecture

cowsay-dotnet follows Clean Architecture principles:

src/
  CowSay.Core/            # Domain: models, interfaces, services
  Cowsay.Application/      # Use cases: GenerateCowSay handler, DTOs
  Cowsay.Infrastructure/   # File system: FileCowRepository, CowFilesDirectoryResolver
  Cowsay.Cli/              # CLI entry point (cowsay executable)
  Cowsay.Cowthink/         # CLI entry point (cowthink executable, shares Program.cs)
  Cowsay.PowerShell/       # PowerShell module (Get-Cowsay / Get-Cowthink cmdlets)

tests/
  Cowsay.Core.Tests/       # 68 tests - domain logic
  Cowsay.Application.Tests/# 17 tests - use case handlers
  Cowsay.Infrastructure.Tests/ # 33 tests - file system operations
  Cowsay.Tests/            # 71 tests - CLI integration tests

packaging/
  linux/                   # deb, rpm, snap, .pkg.tar.zst
  mac/                     # Homebrew formula, macOS .pkg
  windows/                 # MSI (WiX), Chocolatey, WinGet, PowerShell module

build/
  publish.ps1              # Multi-RID publish script
  package-all.ps1          # Cross-platform packaging orchestrator
  install-packaging-tools.ps1  # One-time tool setup
  wsl-build-helper.sh      # WSL helper for Linux package builds

License

cowsay-dotnet is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later (GPL-3.0-or-later).

Copyright 1999-2002 Tony Monroe
Copyright 2016-2024 Andrew Janke
Copyright 2022-2024 Cowsay contributors on GitHub
Copyright 2026 Aldo Vilardy

See LICENSE for the full license notice and LICENSE-GPL-3.0.txt for the complete GPL v3 text.

Acknowledgments

• Tony Monroe -- Creator of the original cowsay (1999-2002). The cow files and the cowsay concept that started it all.
• Andrew Janke -- Maintainer of the cowsay-org fork (2016-2024), which modernized cowsay and clarified its licensing under GPL-3.0-or-later.
• Cowsay contributors on GitHub -- Community contributors to the cowsay-org project.