I built a terminal torrent client because Linux GUI clients kept breaking on me

Description and use

Tornedo is a lightweight terminal torrent client that solves issues with GUI clients on Linux, offers crash‑safe downloads, and is scriptable.

Problem

GUI torrent clients on Linux were either difficult to package outside Ubuntu/Debian or too heavy for an old laptop, causing frequent crashes.

Outcome

Tornedo provides a lightweight, scriptable torrent client that runs on older Linux hardware, eliminates packaging issues, and offers crash‑safe downloads with structured metadata parsing.

Workflow

• Install Node (>=22) and Tornedo via npm or GitHub
• Launch Tornedo from the terminal
• Use the TUI or pipe output to jq for scripting
• Search multiple torrent indexers concurrently
• Merge and rank results to avoid duplicate listings
• Parse release titles into structured metadata (quality, codec, HDR, season/episode)
• Manually select files before download
• Start download; Tornedo reconciles state on restart
• Use tornedo doctor for diagnostics if issues arise

Evidence

TUI built with Ink + React, but the whole thing is scriptable - skip the interactive UI and pipe output straight into jq if you want

Source

Crash-safe - reconciles download state on restart instead of leaving things half-verified

Source