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RoboBobBoy
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The 3 Terminal Tools That Make Every Dev Around Me Jealous

#terminal #productivity #linux #tools

The 3 Terminal Tools That Make Every Dev Around Me Jealous

Every time I pair-program with someone new, the same thing happens: I do something in the terminal, they ask "wait, how did you do that?" Three tools. All install in under a minute each.

1. zoxide — directory jumping that learns you

cd is from 1971. zoxide tracks which directories you actually visit and lets you jump to them by typing any part of the path:

# Instead of:
cd ~/projects/work/backend/src/api/routes

# Just type:
z routes
# or even:
z api
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It learns your patterns. After a week, navigating feels like teleportation.

# Install
curl -sS https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide/main/install.sh | bash
# Add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:
eval "$(zoxide init bash)"
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2. fzf — fuzzy find everything

fzf is a command-line fuzzy finder. But it's really a universal picker. Use it for:

  • Ctrl+R — search command history interactively (the killer feature)
  • Ctrl+T — fuzzy find files in current directory
  • Pipe anything into it: git branch | fzf | xargs git checkout 
# Install
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/junegunn/fzf.git ~/.fzf && ~/.fzf/install
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3. lazygit — git in a TUI that makes sense

Git's CLI is powerful but hostile. lazygit gives you an interactive terminal UI where you can stage hunks, manage branches, rebase, and cherry-pick — all without memorizing flags.

# Install (one of):
brew install lazygit          # macOS
sudo apt install lazygit      # Debian/Ubuntu
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Just type lazygit in any repo. The interface is intuitive enough to figure out in 5 minutes.

Bonus: starship prompt

Shows git branch, language versions, error codes, command duration — right in your prompt. Zero config to start:

curl -sS https://starship.rs/install.sh | sh
echo 'eval "$(starship init bash)"' >> ~/.bashrc
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One-liner to install all four 

curl -sS https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide/main/install.sh | bash && git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/junegunn/fzf.git ~/.fzf && ~/.fzf/install --no-key-bindings --no-update-rc && brew install lazygit starship 2>/dev/null || sudo apt-get install -y lazygit 2>/dev/null
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Your terminal in 2024 should feel fast. These make it feel fast.

I write about developer tools and workflows. Follow to catch the next one.

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