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retlehs/quien · source

Snapshot 0 · 2026-11-04T12:47:28Z · Go · MIT

GitHub description at capture

A better whois and domain intelligence toolkit

README at capture

# quien

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A better whois and domain intelligence toolkit. Interactive TUI with tabbed views for WHOIS, DNS, mail, SSL/TLS, HTTP headers, SEO analysis, and tech stack detection.

![quien demo](demo.gif)

Try it without installing: `ssh quien.sh`

## Install

**Homebrew**

```
brew install quien
```

**Ubuntu / Debian**

```
curl -fsSL https://apt.quien.dev/install.sh | sudo sh
```

**Arch Linux (AUR)**

```
yay -S quien
```

**NixOS / Nix (Flake)**

```
nix shell github:retlehs/quien
```

**Go**

```
go install github.com/retlehs/quien@latest
```

## Features

- **RDAP-first lookups** with WHOIS fallback for broad TLD coverage
  - **IANA referral** for automatic WHOIS server discovery
- **IP lookups** with reverse DNS, network info, abuse contacts, and ASN discovery via RDAP
  - **BGP fallback** for origin ASN/prefix when RDAP does not include ASN data
  - **PeeringDB enrichment** for ASN context (network/org, peering policy, peering locations, traffic profile, IX/facility counts)
- **Mail configuration audit** — MX, SPF (with lookup-count and include/redirect tree expansion), DMARC, DKIM, and BIMI with VMC chain validation
- **SEO analysis** — indexability (robots.txt, canonical, sitemap), on-page (title, description, headings, images), structured data (JSON-LD, Open Graph, Twitter Cards), and performance hints (compression, caching, render-blocking resources)
  - **Core Web Vitals** — LCP, INP, CLS, FCP, and TTFB field data with historical trends via the CrUX API (optional)
- **Tech stack detection** including WordPress plugins, JS/CSS frameworks, and external services parsed from HTML
- **Automatic retry** with exponential backoff on all lookups
- **JSON subcommands** for scripting: `quien whois`, `quien dns`, `quien mail`, `quien tls`, `quien http`, `quien seo`, `quien stack`, `quien all`

## Usage

```
# Interactive prompt
quien

# Domain lookup (interactive TUI)
quien example.com

# IP address lookup
quien 8.8.8.8

# JSON output
quien --json example.com

# JSON subcommands
quien whois example.com
quien dns example.com
quien mail example.com
quien tls example.com
quien http example.com
quien seo example.com
quien stack example.com
quien all example.com

# Probe additional DKIM selectors beyond the built-in common list
quien mail example.com --dkim-selector mySelector --dkim-selector other

# Set default DKIM selectors via environment variable
QUIEN_DKIM_SELECTORS=mySelector,other quien example.com

# Use a specific DNS resolver for this run
quien mail example.com --resolver 9.9.9.9

# Set a default resolver via environment variable
QUIEN_RESOLVER=1.1.1.1 quien dns example.com
```

Resolver precedence: `--resolver` > `QUIEN_RESOLVER` > system resolver.

DKIM selector precedence: `--dkim-selector` > `QUIEN_DKIM_SELECTORS`. User selectors are probed in addition to the built-in common-selector list.

## Core Web Vitals

The SEO tab includes local checks out of the box. For Core Web Vitals field data (real-user metrics from Chrome), set a CrUX API key:

```sh
export QUIEN_CRUX_API_KEY=your-api-key
```

This enables LCP, INP, CLS, FCP, and TTFB p75 values with good/needs-improvement/poor ratings, plus an 8-25 week trend sparkline.

<details>
<summary>Getting a CrUX API key</summary>

1. Go to the [Google Cloud Console](https://console.cloud.google.com/)
2. Create a new project (or select an existing one)
3. Go to **APIs & Services > Library**
4. Search for **Chrome UX Report API** and enable it
5. Go to **APIs & Services > Credentials**
6. Click **Create Credentials > API key**
7. Click **Edit API key**, then under **API restrictions** select **Restrict key** and choose **Chrome UX Report API** from the list
8. Copy the key and set it as `QUIEN_CRUX_API_KEY`

The CrUX API is free. Not all domains have field data — a site needs enough Chrome traffic to be included in the Chrome User Experience Report.

</details>

## Theme

quien automatically detects your terminal background and picks light or dark colors. If detection gets it wrong (common in tmux, screen, or remote shells), override it:

```sh
export QUIEN_THEME=light  # force light palette
export QUIEN_THEME=dark   # force dark palette
export QUIEN_THEME=auto   # auto-detect (default)
```

## Troubleshooting DNS

If your system resolver is unreliable (common in WSL, VPN, or container setups), force a resolver:

```sh
quien mail example.com --resolver 9.9.9.9
# or
export QUIEN_RESOLVER=9.9.9.9
```

> [!TIP]
> If you want `quien` to replace your default whois tool, you can add an alias to your shell config:
> ```sh
> alias whois=quien
> ```

## Agent skill

Add quien as a [agent skill](https://skills.sh/) so agents use it for domain and IP lookups:

```
npx skills add retlehs/quien
```