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?

  1. What is one tool you’ve discovered recently that you can’t live without?
  2. Are there any TUI-based clients for web services (like Mastodon, GitHub, or RSS) that you recommend?
  3. Do you have a favorite “hidden gem” script or small utility?

Mentions & Groups

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@programming
@linux @[email protected] @selfhosted

Hashtags

#CLI #TUI #Terminal #OpenSource #FOSS #Programming #DevTools #Linux #SysAdmin #Workflow #Python #Backend #ArchLinux #KeyboardDriven #Accessibility #SoftwareDevelopment #TechTalk

    • 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.

  • @RareBird15 @programming @linux @selfhosted
    Ones I use pretty much daily are:
    irssi, IRC client,
    Profanity, XMPP client - I had to use a compile-time flag to enable encryption, so, it does support it, but, worth checking if it’s enabled already if you got it as a binary from a package manager or something.,
    newsboat rss/newsreader, a fork of Newsbeuter which is now unmaintained,
    lynx or links, TUI web browsers
    sc, a TUI spreadsheet program.
    mutt, email client
    cmus, music/audio player

    • @RareBird15 @programming @linux @selfhosted Oh also;
      mc, midnight commander clone, a TUI file browser/manager
      pdftotext & pandoc, for converting pdfs, ebooks (and various other sorts of documents) into something more readable on a text-only interface. (does not work for every document, unfortunately. Some pdfs in particular, and some documents with DRM on them, just fail to convert.)

      • Ranger is a good mc replacement as well if you like vim key binds

  • @RareBird15 @programming @linux @selfhosted

    Ones I haven’t seen mentioned (unless it came in while I was typing this).

    https://github.com/kainctl/isd - Interactive systemd.

    https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij - tmux alternative. Built in which-key functionality. I initially switched to it because I like large scrollback buffers and tmux was super slow at resizing window panes. Can open buffers in nvim for better search. Nicer TUI if you don’t mind a little bloat / bling.

    https://github.com/arxanas/git-branchless - Work on stacked commits. Instead of opening PRs linerally you work on several commits at once with the expectation each commit will be a PR. Promotes smaller PRs that are easier to review to complete a feature. Often when doing that linerally you may discover a bad choice made earlier and have to reverse course and refactor. With a branchless workflow you go back and forth on commits so the final stack of PRs doesn’t include those reverse course refactors. git sl has some nice TUI graphs of your stack.

    https://github.com/mystor/git-revise - Split, rearrange commits. Works nicely with git-branchless.

    https://github.com/tummychow/git-absorb - Reflect changes from a commit backwards. Also works well with a branchless workflow.

    If I’m honest I just develop linerally and use an AI agent/skill to restack using the 3 programs above to erase pivot / refactor points and to group logical blocks into an easy to review PR.

    https://github.com/ymtdzzz/otel-tui - Open Telemetry viewer.

    https://github.com/brocode/fblog - JSON Lines viewer.

    https://github.com/aristocratos/btop - Better top.

    https://github.com/jandedobbeleer/oh-my-posh - Terminal prompt. My daily driver.

    https://starship.rs/ - Another terminal prompt. Played with a little but never got around to giving it my full attention to match my oh-my-posh setup.

    https://rclone.org/ - Remote backups using my own encryption key. Supports many cloud providers.

    https://github.com/Mic92/nix-fast-build - Not sure its really faster but has a nicer TUI.

    https://dircolors.com/ - Directory listing colors in terminal output to better distinguish file types. At a glance I can distinguish read-only, executables, symlinks, directories, etc.

    https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit - Git TUI. I only use in neovim though, don’t think I’ve ever run it directly.

    https://github.com/sindrets/diffview.nvim - Better merge conflict handling in neovim.

    https://www.lazyvim.org/ - Base neovim config with lots of TUI sugar.

    https://github.com/stevearc/oil.nvim - File tree explorer in neovim with editing capabilities. Hands down the most efficient way I’ve found to normallize torrent file names. Fixing 5+ seasons of a show takes a few minutes if you know the right vim keybinds.

    https://github.com/getsops/sops / https://github.com/mic92/sops-nix - Encrypt secrets in git repos.

    https://github.com/zdharma-continuum/fast-syntax-highlighting - Syntax highlighting as you type shell commands.

    https://github.com/luccahuguet/yazelix - Opinionated Yazi, Helix, Zellij setup with custom patches to integrate. Looks interesting but could never get to work with nix as it keeps trying to write to store paths. They even have a flake.nix in the repo…

    less - Less shitty more (terminal pager) with the options below.

    export LESS="-aRix2 --use-color --mouse --wheel-lines=3"
    export SYSTEMD_LESS="$LESS"
    
    # a = search from current position
    # i = case insensitive
    # x2 = tabstop
    # R = color control chars show color 
    

    https://pnpm.io/ - Better monorepo support than npm. Faster too. Easy to patch dependencies.

    https://bun.sh/ / https://deno.com/ - Alternate node runtimes. Only have used bun, but its a faster cold start and uses less memory.

    https://oxc.rs/docs/guide/usage/linter.html - eslint clone in rust. Seconds versus minutes. Uses the golang TypeScript 7 preview version of typescript-eslint for type checking.

    https://rolldown.rs/ - Rust clone of the rollup JS/TS bundler.

    https://ast-grep.github.io/ - Grep AST patterns. Written in rust.

    https://dprint.dev/ - Formatter that unifies other formatters. Lots of fast rust plugins.

    https://biomejs.dev/ - Rust based node formatter. dprint support.

    https://github.com/astral-sh/ruff - Rust based python linter and formatter. dprint support.

    https://github.com/numtide/treefmt - Like dprint, forwards to other formatters, but intended for nix declarative setups (for use with devshell or devenv).

    https://direnv.net/ / https://github.com/nix-community/nix-direnv - Activate a virtual environment when you enter a directory. Common with nix devshell/devenv but can run any command. Auto reload based on certain files via watch patterns.

    https://github.com/mikesart/inotify-info - Debug why you’ve maxed out file watchers.

    https://github.com/lyonel/lshw / https://github.com/pciutils/pciutils - Detailed hardware info.

    https://github.com/wagoodman/dive - TUI to explore docker layers.

    https://github.com/containers/skopeo - Bunch of utilities for working with docker images and registries.

  • 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

    • yazi looks really sweet (whereas ranger never quite clicked for me personally)

  • Mostly Linux built-in commands like grep, awk, and cat when working with bash scripts

    For 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) and framed_text (for ANSI messages and yes, this is something I made) for my Python projects.

    git is 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 neovim with nvchad, or nano.

  • 10 hours

    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.
    
    • tldr (aka tealdeer) for quick command usage examples

    • bat (aka batcat) for most uses of less/more/cat

    • difft (aka difftastic) which I’ve just learnt about here/here. Use in git diff by running $ git config --global diff.external difft

    • btm (aka bottom) for viewing processes & system status

    • This code in my .bashrc for colored man output:

    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.)

  • @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!

    • @RareBird15 @programming @linux @selfhosted So you can for instance have a project of some sort that has a script or command that relies on ripgrep in particular and, when someone with mise working on that project opens that folder in their terminal and runs your command they will be using it with ripgrep, with the right version.

  • 13 hours

    Wonderful day!

    @[email protected] , I am sorry, but just in case, the Communities/Member should have the following syntax, if required:
    - !community@instance.test
    - @member@instance.test

    Meanwhile, I hope you’ll find what your you’re looking for, of course!