Modern CLI resources

This article was drafted with AI and edited by a human (me), but every tool listed here is one I actually use daily — they all come from my shell history.

CLI tools are old — and that is exactly why they are good. Just like every handyman needs a simple screwdriver no matter how advanced power tools get, every developer needs solid command-line fundamentals. The basic abstractions (pipes, files, text streams) have survived decades because they are composable and universal.

Here is a list of a few simple tools that genuinely make my workflow smoother. Because we are in the age of AI, I also added Claude Code at the end. I firmly believe that AI and the CLI are a natural fit — most of what makes LLMs powerful today is their ability to use tools, and the terminal is the oldest tool-use interface we have (see this talk for a deeper dive on this idea).

Terminal emulators

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• iTerm2 — I switched from the default Terminal.app years ago and never looked back. Split panes, search, autocomplete — it does everything you need without being fancy about it.

Shell and prompt

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• Zsh — It has been the default on macOS since Catalina, so you might already be using it. I pair it with Oh My Zsh for plugins, though the lighter zinit is worth considering if you find Oh My Zsh too heavy.
• Starship — My prompt. It shows git status, language versions, and cloud context right in the prompt line. Works across shells and you barely need to configure it.
• Zoxide — Probably the tool with the best effort-to-reward ratio on this list. It learns your most-used directories so you can type z blog instead of cd ~/Documents/projects/my-blog. Once you start using it, plain cd feels broken.

Modern replacements for classic tools

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There is a whole wave of Rust and Go rewrites of classic Unix tools with better defaults and colour output. Full disclosure: I still type plain ls, cat, and grep out of muscle memory. I do use The Silver Searcher (ag) for code search, which is already a big step up from grep. The rest are on my list to try — the screwdriver analogy applies here too, the originals work fine but these are just nicer to hold.

If you want to try these without changing your habits, just alias them so your muscle memory keeps working:

alias ls="eza --icons --group-directories-first"
alias cat="bat --style=auto"
alias find="fd"
alias grep="rg --smart-case"
alias du="dust -r"
alias top="btop"
alias sed="sd"
alias diff="delta --side-by-side"
alias curl="xh"
alias man="tldr"

File navigation

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• fzf — This one is hard to explain until you try it. It is a fuzzy finder — you pipe anything into it and get an interactive selector. The real power is composing it with other tools: rg "pattern" | fzf to search code interactively, or git log --oneline | fzf to pick a commit. Once installed it also gives you ctrl+t for file search and ctrl+r for a much better history search.

Multiplexing

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• tmux — The classic terminal multiplexer, and another tool that has survived the test of time. I use it mostly to keep dev servers running in the background while working in another pane. Persistent sessions mean you can disconnect and come back later without losing anything. Pair it with tpm for plugins.

Developer utilities

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• jq — If you work with JSON (and you probably do), this is essential. The query syntax takes a bit of learning, but it pays off fast. For a gentler start, try jnv which gives you a live preview as you build your query.
• lazygit — I have this aliased to lg and I open it before almost every commit. It makes rebasing, staging individual hunks, and resolving conflicts so much less painful than raw git commands. If git’s CLI intimidates you, start here.
• Fork — I use this alongside lazygit. fork . opens the current repo in a clean native GUI, which is useful when you need to visualise branch history or understand the big picture across branches.
• lazydocker — Same idea as lazygit but for Docker. View logs, restart containers, manage volumes — all from one TUI.
• tectonic — If you use LaTeX, this saves a lot of pain. It downloads packages on demand, no manual tlmgr setup. tectonic document.tex just works.

SSH config

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This is not a tool but a trick that saves me time every day. Instead of typing ssh -i ~/.ssh/key user@long-hostname.example.com -p 2222, you can define short aliases in ~/.ssh/config:

Host dev
    HostName my-server.example.com
    User deploy
    Port 2222
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/my_key

Then just ssh dev. Six characters instead of sixty. It also works with scp, rsync, and VS Code remote.

AI in the terminal

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• Claude Code — This is the tool that prompted me to write this article. It runs in your terminal, reads your codebase, edits files, runs commands, and commits code. I now start most projects by typing claude rather than opening an editor. The terminal turns out to be a much better interface for AI than a chatbox — it gives the model direct access to your filesystem, git history, and build tools. Which, going back to the screwdriver analogy, makes the terminal the handle and the LLM the interchangeable bit.

Learning resources

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• The Art of Command Line — A comprehensive guide that I revisit from time to time. Covers everything from basic navigation to tricks I had never thought of.
• Modern Unix — Where I discovered most of the tools in the table above.
• Julia Evans’ zines — The best way I know to build intuition about how networking, bash, git, and DNS actually work. Short, illustrated, and surprisingly deep.
• Command Line Interface Guidelines — If you are building CLI tools yourself, this is the style guide to follow.

Install everything on macOS

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Most of these are available via Homebrew. Here is a single script to install them all:

#!/bin/bash
set -e

# Check for Homebrew
if ! command -v brew &> /dev/null; then
    echo "Installing Homebrew..."
    /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
fi

# Terminal emulator
brew install --cask iterm2

# Shell and prompt
brew install starship zoxide atuin

# Modern replacements
brew install eza bat fd ripgrep dust btop sd git-delta xh tldr the_silver_searcher

# File navigation
brew install fzf yazi
$(brew --prefix)/opt/fzf/install --key-bindings --completion --no-update-rc

# Multiplexing
brew install tmux

# Developer utilities
brew install jq lazygit lazydocker tectonic
brew install --cask fork

# AI
brew install claude-code

echo ""
echo "Done! Add the following to your ~/.zshrc:"
echo ""
echo '# Starship prompt'
echo 'eval "$(starship init zsh)"'
echo ""
echo '# Zoxide'
echo 'eval "$(zoxide init zsh)"'
echo ""
echo '# Atuin'
echo 'eval "$(atuin init zsh)"'
echo ""
echo '# Modern tool aliases'
echo 'alias ls="eza --icons --group-directories-first"'
echo 'alias cat="bat --style=auto"'
echo 'alias find="fd"'
echo 'alias grep="rg --smart-case"'
echo 'alias du="dust -r"'
echo 'alias top="btop"'
echo 'alias sed="sd"'
echo 'alias diff="delta --side-by-side"'
echo 'alias curl="xh"'
echo 'alias man="tldr"'
echo 'alias lg="lazygit"'

Save this as install-cli-tools.sh, run chmod +x install-cli-tools.sh, and execute it. If you already have some of these installed, Homebrew will skip them.

This list is opinionated and reflects what I actually use. I will update it as I discover new tools worth adding to the toolbox.