From the readme:[2] ii is a minimalist FIFO and filesystem-based IRC client.

For every channel and every nickname there are related in and out files created.

This allows IRC communication from command line and adheres to the Unix philosophy.

"[3] Author Tobias Schlitt called ii "fantastic" and his "tool of the year", which "simply uses the file system to structure IRC connections, channels and queries and offers FIFOs to communicate with the server.

It allows you to write IRC bots in bash (or any other language that allows file access)".