diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 680bf10004..b477adf93b 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -381,7 +381,9 @@
 
 23. Using `first` and `last` function on `POSIXct` object no longer loads `xts` namespace, [#3857](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/issues/3857). `first` on empty `data.table` returns empty `data.table` now [#3858](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/issues/3858).
 
-24. We continue to encourage packages to `Import` rather than `Depend` on `data.table`, [#3076](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/issues/3076). To prevent the growth rate in new packages using `Depend`, we have requested that CRAN apply a small patch we provided to prevent new submissions using `Depend`. If this is accepted, the error under `--as-cran` will be as follows. The existing 73 packages using `Depend` will continue to pass OK until they next update, at which point they will be required to change from `Depend` to `Import`.
+24. Added some clarifying details about what happens when a shell command is used in `fread`, [#3877](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/issues/3877). Thanks Brian for the StackOverflow question which highlighted the lack of explanation here.
+
+25. We continue to encourage packages to `Import` rather than `Depend` on `data.table`, [#3076](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/issues/3076). To prevent the growth rate in new packages using `Depend`, we have requested that CRAN apply a small patch we provided to prevent new submissions using `Depend`. If this is accepted, the error under `--as-cran` will be as follows. The existing 73 packages using `Depend` will continue to pass OK until they next update, at which point they will be required to change from `Depend` to `Import`.
 
     ```
     R CMD check <pkg> --as-cran
diff --git a/man/fread.Rd b/man/fread.Rd
index 0f1051c02a..fc147fa0e8 100644
--- a/man/fread.Rd
+++ b/man/fread.Rd
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ yaml=FALSE, autostart=NA, tmpdir=tempdir()
   \item{input}{ A single character string. The value is inspected and deferred to either \code{file=} (if no \\n present), \code{text=} (if at least one \\n is present) or \code{cmd=} (if no \\n is present, at least one space is present, and it isn't a file name). Exactly one of \code{input=}, \code{file=}, \code{text=}, or \code{cmd=} should be used in the same call. }
   \item{file}{ File name in working directory, path to file (passed through \code{\link[base]{path.expand}} for convenience), or a URL starting http://, file://, etc. Compressed files ending \code{.gz} and \code{.bz2} are supported if the \code{R.utils} package is installed. }
   \item{text}{ The input data itself as a character vector of one or more lines, for example as returned by \code{readLines()}. }
-  \item{cmd}{ A shell command that pre-processes the file; e.g. \code{fread(cmd=paste("grep",word,"filename")}. }
+  \item{cmd}{ A shell command that pre-processes the file; e.g. \code{fread(cmd=paste("grep",word,"filename")}. See Details. }
   \item{sep}{ The separator between columns. Defaults to the character in the set \code{[,\\t |;:]} that separates the sample of rows into the most number of lines with the same number of fields. Use \code{NULL} or \code{""} to specify no separator; i.e. each line a single character column like \code{base::readLines} does.}
   \item{sep2}{ The separator \emph{within} columns. A \code{list} column will be returned where each cell is a vector of values. This is much faster using less working memory than \code{strsplit} afterwards or similar techniques. For each column \code{sep2} can be different and is the first character in the same set above [\code{,\\t |;}], other than \code{sep}, that exists inside each field outside quoted regions in the sample. NB: \code{sep2} is not yet implemented. }
   \item{nrows}{ The maximum number of rows to read. Unlike \code{read.table}, you do not need to set this to an estimate of the number of rows in the file for better speed because that is already automatically determined by \code{fread} almost instantly using the large sample of lines. `nrows=0` returns the column names and typed empty columns determined by the large sample; useful for a dry run of a large file or to quickly check format consistency of a set of files before starting to read any of them. }
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ yaml=FALSE, autostart=NA, tmpdir=tempdir()
   \item{keepLeadingZeros}{If TRUE a column containing numeric data with leading zeros will be read as character, otherwise leading zeros will be removed and converted to numeric.}
   \item{yaml}{ If \code{TRUE}, \code{fread} will attempt to parse (using \code{\link[yaml]{yaml.load}}) the top of the input as YAML, and further to glean parameters relevant to improving the performance of \code{fread} on the data itself. The entire YAML section is returned as parsed into a \code{list} in the \code{yaml_metadata} attribute. See \code{Details}. }
   \item{autostart}{ Deprecated and ignored with warning. Please use \code{skip} instead. }
-  \item{tmpdir}{ Directory to use as the \code{tmpdir} argument for any \code{tempfile} calls. The default is \code{tempdir()} which can be controlled by setting \code{TMPDIR} before starting the R session; see \code{\link[base]{tempdir}}. }
+  \item{tmpdir}{ Directory to use as the \code{tmpdir} argument for any \code{tempfile} calls, e.g. when the input is a URL or a shell command. The default is \code{tempdir()} which can be controlled by setting \code{TMPDIR} before starting the R session; see \code{\link[base]{tempdir}}. }
 }
 \details{
 
@@ -115,6 +115,10 @@ Currently, the \code{yaml} setting is somewhat inflexible with respect to incorp
 
 When \code{input} begins with http://, https://, ftp://, ftps://, or file://, \code{fread} detects this and \emph{downloads} the target to a temporary file (at \code{tempfile()}) before proceeding to read the file as usual. Secure URLS (ftps:// and https://) are downloaded with \code{curl::curl_download}; ftp:// and http:// paths are downloaded with \code{download.file} and \code{method} set to \code{getOption("download.file.method")}, defaulting to \code{"auto"}; and file:// is downloaded with \code{download.file} with \code{method="internal"}. NB: this implies that for file://, even files found on the current machine will be "downloaded" (i.e., hard-copied) to a temporary file. See \code{\link{download.file}} for more details.
 
+\bold{Shell commands:}
+
+\code{fread} accepts shell commands for convenience. The input command is run and its output written to a file in \code{tmpdir} (\code{link{tempdir}()} by default) to which \code{fread} is applied "as normal". The details are platform dependent -- \code{system} is used on UNIX environments, \code{shell} otherwise; see \code{\link[base]{system}}.
+
 }
 \value{
     A \code{data.table} by default, otherwise a \code{data.frame} when argument \code{data.table=FALSE}.