Let’s talk CLI/TUI and Developer Workflows!
I’m looking to refresh my local toolkit and I’m curious: what are the absolute “must-have” CLI or TUI programs in your current rotation?
Whether it’s a specialized utility for a specific language, a terminal-based interface for a common service, or a workflow-changing alias, I want to hear about it. I’m especially interested in tools that prioritize keyboard-driven navigation and accessibility.
My Current Favorites:
To get the ball rolling, here are a few tools I’ve been leaning on lately:
- uv — Fast, reliable Python package and project management.
- fzf & ripgrep — The classic duo for fuzzy finding and searching.
- tmux — For session management and persistent terminal workspaces.
- jq / yq — Essential for wrangling JSON and YAML without leaving the prompt.
What about you?
- What is one tool you’ve discovered recently that you can’t live without?
- Are there any TUI-based clients for web services (like Mastodon, GitHub, or RSS) that you recommend?
- Do you have a favorite “hidden gem” script or small utility?
Mentions & Groups
@programming
@linux @terminal_u_i@lemmy.ml @selfhosted
Hashtags
#CLI #TUI #Terminal #OpenSource #FOSS #Programming #DevTools #Linux #SysAdmin #Workflow #Python #Backend #ArchLinux #KeyboardDriven #Accessibility #SoftwareDevelopment #TechTalk
@RareBird15 @programming @linux @selfhosted Can’t believe nobody has mentioned top/btop/htop.
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tldr(akatealdeer) for quick command usage examples -
bat(akabatcat) for most uses ofless/more/cat -
difft(akadifftastic) which I’ve just learnt about here/here. Use ingit diffby running$ git config --global diff.external difft -
btm(akabottom) for viewing processes & system status -
This code in my .bashrc for colored
manoutput:
Spoiler
# Colors for Manpages function _colorman() { env \ LESS_TERMCAP_mb=$'\e[1;35m' \ LESS_TERMCAP_md=$'\e[1;34m' \ LESS_TERMCAP_me=$'\e[0m' \ LESS_TERMCAP_se=$'\e[0m' \ LESS_TERMCAP_so=$'\e[7;40m' \ LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$'\e[0m' \ LESS_TERMCAP_us=$'\e[1;33m' \ LESS_TERMCAP_mr=$(tput rev) \ LESS_TERMCAP_mh=$(tput dim) \ LESS_TERMCAP_ZN=$(tput ssubm) \ LESS_TERMCAP_ZV=$(tput rsubm) \ LESS_TERMCAP_ZO=$(tput ssupm) \ LESS_TERMCAP_ZW=$(tput rsupm) \ GROFF_NO_SGR=1 \ "$@" } alias man="LANG=C _colorman man" function perldoc() { command perldoc -n less "$@" |man -l -; }(Not by me, but I forgot from whom I got it.)
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https://textual.textualize.io/ - wrote my own
IIRC I used this years ago for some project. very cool to play with, nice work.
Oh sorry, to clarify I meant that I wrote my own TUIs with the Textual libraries.
Emacs.
Emacs all the way
Why so?
I’ve been enjoying rmpc, a tui front end for mpd.
Wow this looks great. I haven’t been using ncmpcpp much since I set up navidrome but in used to have it open all the time.
Yeah, it’s pretty spanky! Not to hard to setup, great instructions in the arch wiki. Even has cava visualizer support. Pretty easy to theme as well and there are lots of premade themes on github to use or start from.
I spend a lot of time in k9s, the TUI used to interface with kubernetes clusters
Wonderful day!
@RareBird15@allovertheplace.ca , I am sorry, but just in case, the Communities/Member should have the following syntax, if required:
-!community@instance.test
-@member@instance.testMeanwhile, I hope you’ll find what your you’re looking for, of course!
A few handy commands that aren’t in the traditional unix kit…
$ whatis ffmpeg lsblk mmv nc pv wcurl wrestool xxd ffmpeg (1) - ffmpeg media converter lsblk (8) - list block devices mmv (1) - move/copy/link multiple files by wildcard patterns nc (1) - arbitrary TCP and UDP connections and listens pv (1) - monitor the progress of data through a pipe wcurl (1) - a simple wrapper around curl to easily download files. wrestool (1) - extract resources from Microsoft Windows(R) binaries xxd (1) - make a hex dump or do the reverse.Btm - Like a task manager thing
Zellij - Like tmux, but in rust
Nushell
Yazi - File explorer
Helix - Text editor
- Nushell - because
open blah.json | get foo.bar.2just works. It also just works with yaml and any other formats I want to support (you can define custom commands to support any extension you want). - uv/fnm - good tools for Python and JS
- Starship - nice looking prompt with useful info
- zoxide/fzf - because
z myprojectsaves enough time and effort to justify using it overcdmost of the time - Carapace as my default completer for better completions on most common tools
- Gitui - super nice git tool. I still use
gitdirectly a lot, but Gitui’s interface is more convenient for staging changes
- Nushell - because
Aside from vim or emacs text editors I’ll usually try to keep it to the gnu core utils and programs that are included with most installs just to keep things universal and simple aside from a couple shell functions and aliases for backing up files and navigating for convenience.
Today I used vim, top, ps, grep, du, sort, ls, find, rm, a backup function that suffixes a date to the filename or adds tildes if it already has one, nohup, sudo, cp, tar, unzip off the top of my dome. It’s not the same every day but pretty typical if I’m doing some ops or analysis work.
I’m on my phone, but here’s what I’m using off the top of my head
Helix editor
Yazi - file browser
Aichat
Juju - Jutusu Scm
Ec - conflict resolver
Mergiraf - ast aware conflict resolver
Jiq - jq tui
Radicle - self hosted code forge
Bat - better cat
Fish shell
Nushell
Sqlit - db browser
Zoxide - directory changer
Scooter - find/replace
Mole - Mac cleaner
Devenv - per project dependencies and scripts
Lix - nix client ( largest package manager, great for testing tools too)
Home-manager
Television - fuzzy finder with a nixpkgs plugin
yazilooks really sweet (whereasrangernever quite clicked for me personally)
@RareBird15 @programming @linux @selfhosted I have been playing with mise to manage all my cli tooling. It starts (for me) by being a better version of Volta for node, doing automatic node version switching whenever you try and run node in a configured project. Except it can also be configured to read configs for other node version managers like nvm, and to act like corepack to use the right npm or yarn version configured in package.json. It does that for other languages, and other tools too!
Mostly Linux built-in commands like
grep,awk, andcatwhen working with bash scriptsFor more serious projects that rely on a CLI interface, tools that allow for ANSI codes to be used. For example, I use
prompt_toolkit(for actual menus) andframed_text(for ANSI messages and yes, this is something I made) for my Python projects.gitis my main project branch program. It’s just too good to pass up.I don’t really use CLI/TUI text editors other than quick edits over SSH when I’m not at my PC. For that, I use
neovimwithnvchad, ornano.












