Talk With a Cow in the Terminal Using cowsay
Render any message inside an ASCII speech bubble with the classic cowsay utility.
Run cowsay "your message" and the text appears in an ASCII speech bubble next to a cow.
01Command
Command
$ cowsay "Hello from cmdcv"02What it does
cowsay prints its arguments (or standard input) inside a cartoon speech bubble drawn from plain ASCII. It is the classic terminal party trick and also handy for marking build steps or leaving reminders in scripts. Use -f to select another cowfile, for example tux or dragon.
03Risk
!Warning: Quote the message so the shell does not interpret spaces or special characters.
04Undo
✓No undo needed — this command does not change persistent state.
05Sources
- Homebrew formula: cowsayEvidence: Installs cowsay, which renders a message inside a talking-cow ASCII balloon.
Last verified: 2026-09-20 · Category: Developer
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