What are your five most used terminal commands?

This version works for zsh (OSX/oh-my-zsh here):

history | \
awk '{CMD[$4]++;count++;}END { for (a in CMD)print CMD[a] " " CMD[a]/count*100 "% " a;}' | \
grep -v "./" | \
column -c3 -s " " -t | \
sort -nr | nl |  head -n 5

 1  1364  17,1206%    ssh
 2  928   11,648%     ll
 3  885   11,1083%    ping
 4  786   9,8657%     vi
 5  522   6,55203%    git

Matt Ellen

     1  138  13.8%  cd
     2  97   9.7%   ls
     3  92   9.2%   git
     4  87   8.7%   exit
     5  57   5.7%   xsetwacom

Weird. Not what I expected. I guess I use windowed stuff more than I realise.

Isaac Maseruka

Sorry to ask, but how are you guys having that dark background on your text 😯

Matt Ellen

```bash
Text goes here
```

THREAD

Thanks Matt 😃

Does not appear to work for BASH 5, as I just get a list of dates. I wonder if the author is on macOS, and is using the pre-installed BASH 3.

Changing the $2 to $4 fixed it for me.

     1  100  10%   git
     2  76   7.6%  ls
     3  41   4.1%  cd
     4  37   3.7%  list.sh
     5  37   3.7%  emacsclient

list.sh is a script I wrote to quickly search my calibre library for books in a particular series. e.g., list.sh Justice League shows me all the "Justice League" comics I currently have.

Also, if sudo is in your top 5, then I think there's something wrong with the way you're working. Nobody should need sudo that much.

M. Langhard

Author

My tests were on zsh here.
I think you are right about the usage of sudo. I made some sudoers changes after I saw sudo in my own top list. I think for me it was there, because I used it a lot for package updating / installing.

orrpeles

 1  152  15.2%  cd
 2  123  12.3%  l
 3  75   7.5%   clear
 4  70   7%     git
 5  66   6.6%   cl
 6  62   6.2%   scrapy
 7  55   5.5%   ls
 8  47   4.7%   python
 9  45   4.5%   vim
10  37   3.7%   tree

Ben Sinclair

On my work Mac:

     1  143  28.6%  git
     2  68   13.6%  vi
     3  52   10.4%  shore-site
     4  46   9.2%   cd
     5  39   7.8%   rg

(shore-site is a part of a development environment suite my company uses internally, basically a fancy-pants way of controlling docker instances)

On my nearest VPS:

     1  135  13.5%  sudo
     2  115  11.5%  tmux
     3  107  10.7%  cd
     4  105  10.5%  ls
     5  74   7.4%   vi

This stuff is quite hard to compare, because

I live in Vim and you don't get to see the commands I run from there
remote servers have a lot hidden behind sudo
I have multiple terminal sessions open at any one time on the same machine but don't share history between them

Also I'm betting things like head and grep get used a lot more than this reports but won't show up because they're fed from a pipe.

Chatchai Saratakij

Hmm.., I should use terminal shortcut for clear screen...

     1  1798  17.9477%     clear
     2  1513  15.1028%     ls
     3  1297  12.9467%     git
     4  948   9.46297%     cd
     5  464   4.63166%     vim

Stephen Brown-Bourne

May 22

I clear my terminal all the time too, but I use cmd + K to do it. Try it out, you might find it easier!

Riccardo

May 18

     1  328  32.8%  git
     2  137  13.7%  cd
     3  136  13.6%  ls
     4  90   9%     crea-password.rb
     5  40   4%     bzr

BTW, if you are wondering what "crea-password.rb" is, it is a script of mine that generates random (but repeatable) passwords. Note also the co-presence of the "competitors" git and bazaar ;-)

Dídac Sabatés

For me:

     1  942  11.2116%    gst
     2  477  5.67722%    ras
     3  461  5.48679%    exit
     4  456  5.42728%    gacp
     5  432  5.14163%    cd

gst: Git status
ras: rails s -b 0.0.0.0
exit: Exiting the terminal :)
gacp: git add . && git ci && git push (I'm lazy)
cd: No need for explanation

Stepan Vrany

     1  2588  24.1869%     git
     2  730   6.82243%     k
     3  702   6.56075%     cd
     4  570   5.3271%      cat
     5  540   5.04673%     vim

git:
k: kubectl
cd:
cat:
vim:

Hmmm, I'm actually pretty surprised that docker is not there :D

Yordi Verkroost

1   1896  18.0297%     mix
2   1166  11.0879%     gco
3   1101  10.4698%     vi
4   707   6.72309%     gl
5   565   5.37277%     git

mix: build tool used with Elixir
gco: git checkout
vi: editor
gl: git pull
git: generic git command

Hoang Manh Phu

This version work for OSX fish-shell (github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell)

history | \                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               0
     awk '{CMD[$1]++;count++;}END { for (a in CMD)print CMD[a] " " CMD[a]/count*100 "% " a;}' | \
     grep -v "./" | \
     column -c3 -s " " -t | \
     sort -nr | nl |  head -n 5

My commands:

     1  403  35.3819%    git
     2  81   7.1115%     cd
     3  67   5.88235%    vi
     4  63   5.53117%    ssh
     5  58   5.09219%    grep

Brent O'Connor

I cheated and used Excel because the different commands people shared to get totals didn't take into account command line arguments.

1  304  4.7904%    make lint    Run linting in my project
2  272  4.2862%    dcup         Alias for `docker-compose up`
3  196  3.0886%    gst          Alias for `git status`
4  173  2.7261%    wn pears     Alias for `workon pears`, which is using python virtualenvwrapper
5  138  2.1746%    gco develop  Alias for git checkout develop
6  121  1.9067%    dka && dcc   Alias for killing all running docker containers and then removing them

Yechiel Kalmenson

The one that's by far most overused (though it won't show up on the list) is the UP arrow. I will shamelessly hit UP 20 times rather than type the simplest command...

Work Computer:

     1  3212  19.8076%     git                                                                       
     2  1589  9.79896%     bosh                                                                      
     3  1279  7.88727%     cd                                                                        
     4  1126  6.94376%     ls                                                                        
     5  1078  6.64776%     vim

Bosh being our product.

Personal Computer:

     1  55  15.896%    sudo
     2  36  10.4046%   git
     3  21  6.06936%   connect
     4  18  5.20231%   rake
     5  16  4.62428%   rvm

As you can tell from the numbers, it's really new (just a few weeks).

connect is an alias for my office's vpn.

re: up arrow
Same

1   2066  17.3468%     git
2   1919  16.1125%     npm
3   572   4.80269%     docker
4   468   3.92947%     sh
5   418   3.50966%     ll

seems I'm boring, aha

DownloadPizza

Is sh linked to bash, dash or is it real sh? I wouldn't really see a reason to use sh, even for sh scripts

sherlockliu

maybe it's my bad habit, I use sh xxx.sh instead of ./xxx.sh

Lee Flannery

Work box:

 1  242  48.4%  git
 2  105  21%    brew
 3  58   11.6%  cd
 4  26   5.2%   open
 5  12   2.4%   which

It's a Mac obviously (brew), most of my work done in Visual Studio for Mac. Hence "open" ... open . so I can open a project file.

Funny that ls isn't on there. I guess I know where most of my stuff is? (but not which one is in the path first, hence which ;P.)

Mitch Stanley

Fish shell doesn't seem to record this info :(. I'm pretty sure my top 5 commands would be

git
php
cd
rg (ripgrep)
nvim (neovim)

Edit: Completely forgot timew (Time Warrior) I use this constantly for tracking time.

Chris Werner Rau

history | \
awk '{CMD[$4]++;count++;}END { for (a in CMD)print CMD[a] " " CMD[a]/count*100 "% " a;}' | \
grep -v "./" | \
column -c3 -s " " -t | \
sort -nr | nl |  head -n 10

     1  478  9.83944%    yay
     2  412  8.48086%    vim
     3  286  5.8872%     ls
     4  263  5.41375%    sudo
     5  257  5.29024%    kubectl

Though this is more representative of which commands I use more uniquely, as I only save new commands into my history, as to not crowd it too much

Ali Spittel

New-ish computer, but lots of git going on!

     1  792  35.2627%    git
     2  196  8.72663%    ls
     3  180  8.01425%    cd
     4  129  5.74354%    code
     5  105  4.67498%    ..

Tobias SN

     1  135  26,9461%   npm
     2  55   10,978%    node
     3  48   9,58084%   fortune
     4  39   7,78443%   cd
     5  22   4,39122%   ls

Dave Follett

fortune -o is one of my ❤ commands. From the man page if anyone is interested:

     -o    Choose only from potentially offensive aphorisms.  Please, please,
           please request a potentially offensive fortune if and only if you
           believe, deep down in your heart, that you are willing to be of-
           fended.  (And that if you are, you'll just quit using -o rather
           than give us grief about it, okay?)

M. Langhard

Author

Is fortune the one that posts quotes to your terminal?

Yeah.

    $ history|awk '{print $2}'|sort|uniq -c|sort -rn|head -5
       176 git
        86 ack
        70 exit
        34 prove
        29 vi

exit will be because I'm constantly creating and destroying virtual terminals in GNU screen. ack is like grep but better. prove runs my tests. vi is so far down the list because most of my work is in a single vim that has been running for [looks at process table] three months now.

Marcus Gawronsky

1   186  24.8663%   sudo
2   107  14.3048%   conda
3   94   12.5668%   docker
4   73   9.75936%   cd
5   44   5.88235%   ls

Vincent Grovestine

 1  216  21.6%  git
 2  152  15.2%  cd
 3  132  13.2%  ls
 4  88   8.8%   exit
 5  48   4.8%   sudo
 6  33   3.3%   ssh
 7  22   2.2%   more
 8  19   1.9%   touch
 9  16   1.6%   wmctrl
10  16   1.6%   twee2

GatheringRays

For me, these are the top 5. I don't do much on my Ubuntu server.

1  203  20.3%  cd
2  200  20%    ls
3  136  13.6%  nano
4  127  12.7%  service
5  38   3.8%   tail

Isaac Maseruka

1 1094 27.7032% clear 2 916 23.1957% git 3 406 10.2811% cd 4 293 7.4196% ls 5 190 4.81134% npm

Jim Plourde

Recently, I was doing a Python and a Django tutorial and also reading Obey the testing goat.

     1  452  23.4318%    vim
     2  218  11.3012%    ls
     3  161  8.34629%    python
     4  156  8.08709%    python3
     5  127  6.58372%    git

Nathan Tamez

     1  94  18.8%  yarn
     2  81  16.2%  cd
     3  66  13.2%  gulp
     4  23  4.6%   python3
     5  22  4.4%   npm

Shankar Balachandran

I guess mine is pretty standard

1 186 18.6% cd
2 113 11.3% sudo
3 107 10.7% ls
4 101 10.1% clear
5 73 7.3% exit

DownloadPizza

I guess you use an IDE or don't code (probably the first one)

Shankar Balachandran

Yeah I'am mostly on eclipse. I use terminal for server deployments and ant builds mostly. ERP developer on custom java framework :)

Danny Perez

     1  3015  28.0283%     git
     2  600   5.57776%     curl
     3  536   4.9828%      cd
     4  451   4.19262%     less
     5  319   2.96551%     npm

Stephanie Handsteiner

  1 147  29.4%  git
  2 64   12.8%  cd
  3 43   8.6%   vagrant
  4 40   8%     vi
  5 36   7.2%   ssh

Alan Montgomery

1   1442  14.4214%   git
2   1442  14.4214%   cd
3   1129  11.2911%   psql
4   976   9.76098%   php
5   891   8.91089%   ssh

Ben Lovy

Neat:

     1  730  22.9127%    sudo
     2  341  10.7031%    tmux
     3  330  10.3578%    cd
     4  244  7.65851%    cargo
     5  182  5.71249%    git

I don't know what I expected.

Todd Stark II

     1  167  33.4%  docker
     2  62   12.4%  ssh
     3  53   10.6%  git
     4  52   10.4%  cd
     5  50   10%    ls

Manuel Medina

1  135  27%    git
2  106  21.2%  cd
3  73   14.6%  docker
4  43   8.6%   ls
5  27   5.4%   exit

Ian Knighton

     1  659  16.0146%    ls
     2  648  15.7473%    docker
     3  468  11.373%     cd
     4  406  9.86634%    clear
     5  344  8.35966%    git

Markus Huggler

 1  1639  16.0419%     kubectl
 2  958   9.37653%     git
 3  885   8.66203%     cd
 4  821   8.03563%     vi
 5  691   6.76324%     sudo

Ian Knighton

I imagine my kubectl usage was insane not too long ago. Probably still goes through spurts where it is at the top.

M. Langhard

Author

Seeing kubectl in my own top 5 and so many others, I am starting to think wether there are some shortcomings in the way we interact with k8s today...

Mpho Mphego

     1  750  16.1152%    git
     2  553  11.8823%    cd
     3  428  9.19639%    ls
     4  137  2.9437%     sudo
     5  127  2.72884%    python

StefanT123

New machine, but actually I'm very surprised with these.

1   193  19.3%  sudo
2   86   8.6%   valet
3   78   7.8%   git
4   49   4.9%   ll
5   44   4.4%   cd

Newton Munene

clear
sudo
cd
npm i
git

sunbingfeng

May 20

For me:

     1  163  32.6%  git
     2  78   15.6%  ls
     3  72   14.4%  rsync
     4  65   13%    cd
     5  30   6%     vi

cd + ls is harmonious couple.

git
cd
yarn
jump
ant

     1  130  13%    cd
     2  120  12%    sudo
     3  116  11.6%  ls
     4  104  10.4%  git
     5  81   8.1%   vim

Maamar

My top 5

 1  46  18.3267%   clear
 2  44  17.5299%   sudo
 3  28  11.1554%   git
 4  21  8.36653%   cd
 5  19  7.56972%   heroku

taragurung

 1  336  33.6%  ls
 2  247  24.7%  git
 3  116  11.6%  vim
 4  106  10.6%  cd
 5  82   8.2%   clear

Slavik Svyrydiuk

 1  209  10.7676%    git
 2  164  8.44925%    sudo
 3  135  6.95518%    cd
 4  117  6.02782%    vi
 5  96   4.9459%     ssh

tonnoz

I love the tldr command: github.com/tldr-pages/tldr even though is not in my top commands (thankfully) it's still a great tool imo.

Jakub Novák

 1  669  66.9%  git
 2  134  13.4%  cd
 3  93   9.3%   composer
 4  31   3.1%   yarn
 5  15   1.5%   sudo

Debashis Dip

     1  2690  26.857%      git
     2  1520  15.1757%     cd
     3  1155  11.5315%     ls
     4  622   6.21006%     pipenv
     5  385   3.84385%     pytest

oh! Interesting..

Shankar

 1  1379  16.9161%    git
 2  790   9.69087%    npm
 3  783   9.605%      yarn
 4  525   6.44014%    push
 5  373   4.57556%    gca

Renato Suero

 1  447  19.3256%    docker
 2  296  12.7972%    git
 3  214  9.25205%    ls
 4  196  8.47384%    cd
 5  169  7.30653%    nvim

Vicente G. Reyes