As engineers, much of our work revolves around the terminal, which is enriched by a variety of CLI tools. These tools can streamline our experience in the command line, making it more efficient and enjoyable.

Here I share the CLI tools that have become indispensable in my workflow. Additionally, I’ve compiled a list of other CLI tools that I’m looking forward to exploring. For convenience, I’ve provided scripts to automate the installation of my preferred tools on Debian/Ubuntu-based distributions and macOS, which are part of my daily toolkit.

Quick install scripts

I use Debian/ubuntu based Linux distros and MacOS as my daily drivers so here would be a quick way to install them on each

MacOS:

# Tools and dependencies
export PROGRAMS="fx jq yq httpie gping lazygit tig exa fd fzf neofetch tmux navi bpytop duf dua-cli rclone micro ripgrep diff-so-fancy the_silver_searcher tre-command tailspin doggo mactop sig yazi ffmpegthumbnailer unar poppler fd ripgrep fzf zoxide font-symbols-only-nerd-font"

# might be reqiured for mactop:
brew tap context-labs/mactop https://github.com/context-labs/mactop

export INSTALLER="brew"
for program in $PROGRAMS ; do $INSTALLER install $program ; done

# fzf
# Install key bindings and fuzzy completion:
$(brew --prefix)/opt/fzf/install

Debian/Ubuntu-based Linux distros

Installing from available package repositories where possible (and not necessarily the latest!):

export PROGRAMS="jq yq httpie tig exa fd-find neofetch tmux bpytop duf rclone micro ripgrep  silversearcher-ag tre-command"

export INSTALLER="sudo apt"
for program in $PROGRAMS ; do $INSTALLER install $program -y ; done

# fzf
# Linux: Install with this script instead of apt so it sets up bindings etc
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/junegunn/fzf.git ~/.fzf
~/.fzf/install

# Other tools we need to install wihout apt:

# fx 
sudo curl https://fx.wtf/install.sh | sh
rm fx

# Tailspin
# Requires 
sudo apt install build-essential cargo
# Install using the package manager
cargo install tailspin
# reload bash with new cargo env
echo "export PATH=$PATH:~/.cargo/bin/" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

# sig
# Requires 
sudo apt install build-essential cargo
# Install using the package manager
cargo install sigrs
echo "export PATH=$PATH:~/.cargo/bin/" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

# Yazi
# Requires latest rust
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh  
rustup update
# Now you can install Yazi from latest git version:
cargo install --locked --git https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi.git yazi-fm yazi-cli

# dua-cli - if not available in apt
# Requires 
sudo apt install build-essential cargo
# Install
curl -LSfs https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Byron/dua-cli/master/ci/install.sh | \
    sh -s -- --git Byron/dua-cli --target x86_64-unknown-linux-musl --crate dua --tag v2.17.4
# reload bash with new cargo env
echo "export PATH=$PATH:~/.cargo/bin/" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

# yq
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rmescandon/yq -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install yq -y

# doggo
cd "$(mktemp -d)"
curl -sL "https://github.com/mr-karan/doggo/releases/download/v0.3.7/doggo_0.3.7_linux_amd64.tar.gz" | tar xz
sudo mv doggo /usr/local/bin

# lazygit
cd "$(mktemp -d)"
export LAZYGIT_VERSION=$(curl -s "https://api.github.com/repos/jesseduffield/lazygit/releases/latest" | grep -Po '"tag_name": "v\K[^"]*')
curl -Lo lazygit.tar.gz "https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit/releases/latest/download/lazygit_${LAZYGIT_VERSION}_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz"
tar xf lazygit.tar.gz lazygit
sudo install lazygit /usr/local/bin
cd ~

# gping
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/azlux-archive-keyring.gpg] http://packages.azlux.fr/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/azlux.list
sudo wget -O /usr/share/keyrings/azlux-archive-keyring.gpg  https://azlux.fr/repo.gpg
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gping

# Navi
bash <(curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/denisidoro/navi/master/scripts/install)

# diff-so-fancy
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:aos1/diff-so-fancy -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install diff-so-fancy -y

My favourite tools

JSON

• jq - flexible command-line JSON processor.
• fx - Terminal JSON viewer & processor
• jnv - Designed for navigating JSON, offering an interactive JSON viewer and jq filter editor.

YAML

• yq - YAML, JSON, and XML processor. yq uses jq like syntax but works with yaml files as well as json, xml, properties, csv and tsv

HTTP Tools

• httpie - (http) A simple yet powerful command-line HTTP and API testing client for the API era.

Network Tools

• doggo a modern command-line DNS client (like dig) written in Golang. It outputs information in a neat concise manner and supports protocols like DoH, DoT, DoQ, and DNSCrypt as well.
• gping - Interactive ping tool (better than ping)

Git

I use tig for repository browsing and lazygit for staging and committing:

• lazygit A simple terminal UI for git commands
• tig functions mainly as a Git repository browser but can also assist in staging changes for commits at the chunk level and act as a pager for output from various Git commands.

Terminal

• exa - A modern replacement for ls.
• fd is a program that finds entries in your filesystem. It is a simple, fast, and user-friendly alternative to find.
• fzf is a general-purpose command-line fuzzy finder.
• neofetch - Show system data and distro info
• tmux - terminal multiplexer. It lets you switch between several programs in one terminal, detach them (they keep running in the background), and reattach them to a different terminal.
• sig - interactive search through (streaming) data, updating results in real-time.
• yazi - fast terminal file manager written in Rust, based on async I/O.

Help Manuals

• navi - Interactive cheat sheet.  It integrates with tldr and cheat.sh to get content, but you can also import other cheatsheets or even write your own

  Resource monitoring

• bpytop - Resource monitoring (like htop). It shows top running processes, recent CPU, memory, disk, and network history.
• glances - Monitor resources. It includes a fully responsive web view, a REST API, and historical monitoring.

Disk

• duf - Disk Usage  lie df. It is great for showing info about mounted disks and checking free space.
• dua-cli let’s you interactively view used and available disk space for each mounted drive and makes freeing up storage easy

Cloud Storage

• rclone - a handy utility for syncing files and folders to various cloud storage providers

Text Editor

• micro - minimal Code editor  like nano with more features

  Text

• bat - Acat clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration.
• ripgrep- rg is a line-oriented search tool that recursively searches the current directory for a regex pattern
• diff-so-fancy - Gives you better-looking diffs for comparing strings, files, directories, and git changes

  File Search

• ag - aka the Silver Searcher, is significantly faster and should be used as a drop-in replacement for ack
• tre - Directory hierarchy ( Alternative to tree). It outputs a tree style list of files for your current or a specified directory, with colors. When running with the -e option, it numbers each item and creates a temporary alias that you can use to quickly jump to that location

Logs

• tailspin - (tspin) parses log lines to highlight data formats like dates, IPs, UUIDs, numbers, HTTP methods, etc. Highlighting rules are configurable. You can watch and follow files in a directory. It uses less than the pager with keyboard navigation, search, and filtering support.

Kubernetes

• k9s - Kubernetes dashboard app

Looks interesting, but I haven’t tried it yet…

• asciinema is useful for easily recording, sharing, and embedding a terminal session.
• autojump - (j) is a faster way to navigate your filesystem. It works by maintaining a database of the directories you use the most from the command line.
• bandwhich - Bandwidth utilization monitor.
• browsh - An interactive, real-time, modern text-based browser rendered to TTYs and browsers.
• ctop - Container metrics and monitoring.å
• direnv - Augments your existing shells with a cool feature that loads and unloads environment variables based on the current directory.
• entr - Watch for file changes. You can pass a file, directory, symlink, or regex to specify which files it should watch. It’s useful for automatically rebuilding projects, reacting to logs, automated testing, etc.
• fdupes - Duplicate file finder. It can be used for identifying and/or deleting duplicate files within specified directories. It’s useful for freeing up disk space when you’ve got two or more identical files.
• [figlet](http://www.figlet.org/ - Output text as big ASCII art text.
• freeze - Generate images of code and terminal output.
• hub is an extension to command-line git that helps you do everyday GitHub tasks without ever leaving the terminal.
• inshellisense - IDE style autocomplete for shells. It’s a terminal native runtime for autocomplete , which has support for 600+ command line tools
• kdash - Kubernetes dashboard app written in rust
• just - A handy way to save and run project-specific commands. Commands, called recipes, are stored in a file called justfile with syntax inspired by make.
• lazydocker - Full Docker management app.
• most - A pager for reading through long files or command outputs. Most support multi-windows and have the option not to wrap text.
• ngrok - (Safely) exposes your localhost to the internet behind a unique URL.
• procs - Process viewer (A better ps). It is an easy-to-navigate process viewer, with colored highlighting, sorting, and searching for processes made easy, a tree view, and real-time updates.
• rip - A deletion tool that is safe, ergonomic, and performant. It lets you intuitively remove files and directories and easily restore deleted files.
• scc - Count lines of code (an alternative to cloc).
• sd is an easy, fast, and intuitive find-and-replace tool based on string literals. It can be executed on a file, an entire directory, or any piped text.
• surge - A free static hosting provider you can deploy directly from the terminal in a single command; just run surge from within your dist directory! It supports custom domains, auto SSL certs, pushState support, and cross-origin resource support - and it’s free!
• thefuck - Auto-correct miss-typed commands like magic.
• tldr - taps into a huge collection of community-maintained man pages. It’s a great alternative to man.
• tmate - share a live terminal session with someone elsewhere.
• transfer - Upload and share files from the command line easily. It’s free, supports encryption, gives you a unique URL, and can be self-hosted.
• aria2 - (aria2c) Download Utility. It is a lightweight, multi-protocol, resuming download utility for HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, SFTP, BitTorrent, and Metalink, with support for controlling via an RPC interface.
• Livegrep is an amazing tool, partially inspired by Google Code Search, that allows you to interactively search gigabyte-scale source repositories using regex. You can check out a running instance at http://livegrep.com/.
• Trippy - Trippy combines the functionality of traceroute and ping and is designed to assist with the analysis of networking issues.
• zoxide - (z) Easy navigation (an alternative to cd). It lets you jump to any directory without remembering or specifying its full path. It remembers the directories you’ve visited so that you can jump around quickly.

Productivity Tools - Live in your terminal

I haven’t tried these either

• browsh - CLI web browser
• buku - Bookmark manager
• cmus - Music browser/player
• cointop - Track crypto prices
• ddgr - Search the web from the terminal
• khal - Calendar client
• mutt - Email client
• newsboat - RSS / ATOM news reader
• taskwarrior - Todo + task management
• wttr.in - Check the weather