how to read terminal input in node.js?

I think there is no need to use third party library, if you just want to get command line params.

You can use process.argv property of process node core object.

just use process.argv & you are good to go.It returns an array in which by default there is 2 element, at 0 index Node execution directory & at 1 index working directory, so cmd line params start from 2nd index.

So in nutshell, you can access cmd line params using process.argv[2] onwards.

For commandline app you can use nicl. you can make call to your chat module or websocket or whatever based on your logic.

var nicl = require("nicl");

function main() {
    nicl.printLine("Hello, what is your name?");
    var name = nicl.readLine();
    //call to websocket or any chat module 
    nicl.printLine("Great to meet you, " + name + "!");


    process.exit(0);
}

nicl.run(main);