steamie

A terminal-native Steam client written in Rust, powered by Ratatui.

Browse your library, chat with friends, and launch games — all from a fast, keyboard-driven TUI, with no browser and no Steam window in your way.

Unofficial. steamie is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Valve or Steam. It talks to Steam's own connection-manager protocol the same way the official client does; use it at your own discretion.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Installation
• Configuration
• Usage
• Launching games
  • Contributing to the DRM-free list
• Limitations
• Architecture
• Development
• Roadmap
• Contributing
• Security
• Maintainer
• License

Features

• Login over the Steam CM protocol — QR-code sign-in (default) or username/password, no Web API key required.
• Friends — your friends list, loaded directly from Steam.
• Library — owned games and tools, filtered Steam-style by app type (t cycles All / Games / Software-Tools).
• Real-time 1-on-1 chat — a Chat tab with conversation list, scrollable history, and a composer; messages send and arrive live over the modern FriendMessages service, with local history kept per-conversation.
• Per-game playtime & achievements — native, pulled over the protocol (no scraping, no API key).
• News — sourced from your library, recently-played, and wishlist apps.
• Launch games — start any installed game from the library. By default Steam is launched silently (minimized to the tray, no window); an experimental mode can launch DRM-free titles with no Steam at all. See Launching games below.

Installation

steamie requires Rust 1.85+ (it uses edition 2024) when building from source.

# Cargo (installs the `steamie` binary)
cargo install steamie
# Arch Linux (AUR) — prebuilt binary (faster)
yay -S steamie-bin
# Arch Linux (AUR) — build from source
yay -S steamie
# Homebrew (macOS)
brew install LargeModGames/steamie/steamie
# Windows (winget)
winget install steamie

Or download a prebuilt binary from GitHub Releases.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/LargeModGames/steamie.git
cd steamie
cargo build --release
./target/release/steamie

cargo run --bin steamie works too for a debug build. No special system libraries are required — networking uses rustls and desktop notifications use zbus, so there's no OpenSSL, X11, or audio dependency to install.

Configuration

Configuration is optional — steamie runs with sensible defaults. To customize, create ~/.config/steamie/config.toml:

# api_key = "YOUR_STEAM_WEB_API_KEY" # optional fallback; https://steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey# steam_id = "76561198XXXXXXXXX" # optional; auto-detected after login
[auth]
method = "qr"# "qr" (default) or "credentials"account_name = ""# optional hint for credential login
[ui]
tick_rate_ms = 250# default 250theme = "dark"# default "dark"
[chat]
notifications_enabled = true# terminal bell on incoming messagedesktop_notifications = false# also raise a notify-rust desktop notificationhistory_retention_days = 30# local chat history kept; 0 = keep everything
[launch]
steam_path = ""# override; auto-detected (registry / default path) when emptydry_run = false# log the exact launch command instead of spawning itkill_steam_on_exit = false# if steamie started Steam, shut it down when the game exits (best-effort)silent = true# start Steam minimized to tray (no window); false shows itdirect_launch = false# experimental: launch DRM-free-listed games with NO Steam runningforce_direct = false# experimental: with direct_launch, try the direct path for any installed game
[launch.game_args] # optional per-game args, keyed by appid string# "730" = "-novid -high"

Usage

Run steamie to start the UI. Press ? at any time for the in-app keybinding help.

Key	Action
j / ↓	Move down
k / ↑	Move up
g g	Jump to top
G	Jump to bottom
Enter	Open detail · launch in detail view
l	Launch highlighted game
L	Recently-played quick-launch overlay
Esc / Backspace	Go back
/	Search library
t	Cycle library type filter (All / Games / Software-Tools)
r	Reload current view
1 … 5	Switch tab: Library · Friends · Wishlist · News · Chat
?	Toggle help
q / Ctrl+C	Quit

Launching games

From the Library tab: press l to launch the highlighted game, Enter to open its detail view (then Enter/l to launch), or L for a recently-played quick-launch overlay.

By default the game launches through the official Steam client, but Steam stays out of your way: it starts minimized to the system tray with no window (steam -silent -applaunch <appid>), the game appears, and DRM/presence work normally. Set silent = false if you'd rather see Steam's window.

Experimental — launch with no Steam at all. Games that are confirmed to run without the Steam client (DRM-free titles) can be launched directly from their executable, so Steam never wakes. Enable it with direct_launch = true; a game is eligible when it's on the community DRM-FREE-GAMES.md list and installed. Anything else falls back to the silent Steam launch above. The status line shows ▶ Launched X (no Steam) when it goes direct.

kill_steam_on_exit only ever shuts down a Steam that steamie itself started, and is best-effort (reliable on Windows, weaker on Linux, a no-op on macOS). Set dry_run = true to preview the exact command a launch would run without starting anything.

Contributing to the DRM-free list

DRM-FREE-GAMES.md is a community-maintained table of Steam games that run with Steam fully closed. To add a game: quit Steam, confirm the game still launches from its steamapps/common/<game>/ executable, then add a row with its AppID and name and open a PR. You can also keep a private list at ~/.config/steamie/drm-free.md (same format).

Limitations

• Direct launch needs the library load to have populated PICS launch info; otherwise it falls back to Steam. Proton/Wine prefix wrapping for the direct path is not yet implemented (Steam still applies Proton itself for the mediated path).
• force_direct on a DRM-protected game spawns an executable that will bounce (Steam isn't running) and won't auto-recover.
• kill_steam_on_exit detection is best-effort: reliable on Windows (registry), weaker on Linux, a no-op on macOS.
• Launch arguments are whitespace-split (no quoted-argument grouping).
• Group chat is not yet supported (1-on-1 only); the chat list is populated as conversations arrive or are opened, and per-message wall-clock timestamps aren't displayed yet.

Architecture

steamie is a Cargo workspace with three crates:

• steamie-api — Steam Web API / Store API HTTP client.
• steamie-core — config, session, caching, the game launcher, and local chat history.
• steamie — the ratatui terminal UI (produces the steamie binary).

The raw Steam connection-manager protocol (WebSocket connection, auth, friends, service calls) lives in a separate crate, steam-cm-protocol (crates.io).

Development

cargo run --bin steamie # run (debug)
cargo build --release # release build
cargo check --workspace # type-check everything
cargo test --workspace # run tests
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo fmt --all # format

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full contributor guide.

Roadmap

• Group chat (ChatRoom.*)
• Proton/Wine prefix wrapping for the direct (no-Steam) launch path
• Per-message wall-clock timestamps in chat
• Preloading the conversation list from disk on startup
• Quoted-argument grouping for launch options

Have an idea? Open a Discussion or an issue.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — code, docs, bug reports, and additions to the DRM-free games list. See CONTRIBUTING.md and our Code of Conduct.

Security

Found a vulnerability? Please report it privately — see SECURITY.md.

Maintainer

Built and maintained by LargeModGames.

License

MIT.