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Sean Boult for AWS

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Terminal Superpowers You Should Be Using in 2026

#productivity #cli #zsh

I live in my terminal. Here's what I use to stay fast.

⚠️ NOTE: Some of these are zsh-specific, so make sure you have that set up first.

Fuzzy finder (fzf)

Please please stop spamming up arrow to find that command you ran. Instead you can make this so much simpler with fzf.

Once installed, hit Ctrl+R and your shell history becomes searchable. No more mashing the up arrow 47 times to find that docker command you ran last Tuesday.

You can also use it to find files:

# fuzzy find a file and open it in your editor
vim $(fzf)
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Or pipe anything into it:

# search git branches
git branch | fzf
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Seriously, just install fzf.

Terminal motions

Stop holding backspace and typing everything all over again...

Here are the motions that saved me the most time:

Shortcut What it does
Option + ←/→ Jump by word
Option + Backspace Delete a word
Ctrl + A Jump to beginning of line
Ctrl + E Jump to end of line
Ctrl + K Delete everything after cursor

Drill these for a week and holding backspace will start to physically hurt you.

Sudo shortcut

You've done this before:

apt install something
# Permission denied
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Instead of retyping the whole thing, just run:

sudo !!
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!! expands to your last command. Done.

Tab completion

ZSH tab completion goes further than bash:

  • Tab into directories and keep going (no need to hit enter between each level)
  • Cycle through matches with repeated tab presses
  • Case-insensitive matching by default

In this case I did ~/.aw<tab>/co<tab>.

If you're typing full paths by hand, you're doing it wrong.

Autocompletion

Some CLI tools ship with their own completions for subcommands and flags. The AWS CLI is a good example:

# Add this to your .zshrc
autoload bashcompinit && bashcompinit
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit
complete -C '/usr/local/bin/aws_completer' aws
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Now aws s3<TAB> shows you all the s3 subcommands. Most popular CLIs (docker, kubectl, gh, npm) have similar setups. Check their docs.

Autosuggestions

zsh-autosuggestions gives you fish-like behavior in ZSH. As you type, it shows a grayed-out suggestion based on your history. Press the right arrow to accept it.

Give it a few days and you won't be able to go back.

Syntax highlighting

zsh-syntax-highlighting highlights your commands as you type. Valid commands go green, invalid go red. It's instant feedback before you even hit enter.

You catch typos before you hit enter. That's it, that's the sell.

Command buffering

Kick off a long-running command like pnpm i, then just type your next command and hit enter. ZSH buffers it and runs it when the first one finishes.

You're typing blind so typos happen, but it beats waiting around.

Terminal clearing

Two quick ones:

  • clear (or Ctrl + L) - clears the screen but keeps scrollback
  • Cmd + K - nukes everything including scrollback

I use Cmd + K when I want a clean slate and clear when I just want visual breathing room.

Resources

Here's everything linked in one place:

That's my setup. Most of these take under a minute to install and will save you hours over time. If you found this useful, feel free to follow me for more dev tooling tips.

Happy coding 😀!

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