I wrote a script called please. You input please followed by any other command (e.g. please git clone, please wget blahblah) and a robotic voice will say “affirmative,” then the command will run, and when it completes, the robotic voice reads out the exit code (e.g. “completed successfully” or “failed with status 1” etc.)

This is useful for when you have a command that takes a long time and you want to be alerted when it’s finished. And it’s a gentleman.

I often want to know the status code of a curl request, but I don’t want that extra information to mess with the response body that it prints to stdout.

What to do?

Render an image instead, of course!

curlcat takes the same params as curl, but it uses iTerm2’s imgcat tool to draw an “HTTP Cat” of the status code.

It even sends the image to stderr instead of stdout, so you can still pipe curlcat to jq or something.

#!/usr/bin/env zsh

stdoutfile=$( mktemp )
curl -sw "\n%{http_code}" $@ > $stdoutfile
exitcode=$?

if [[ $exitcode == 0 ]]; then
  statuscode=$( cat $stdoutfile | tail -1 )

  if [[ ! -f $HOME/.httpcat$statuscode ]]; then
    curl -so $HOME/.httpcat$statuscode https://http.cat/$statuscode
  fi

  imgcat $HOME/.httpcat$statuscode 1>&2
fi

cat $stdoutfile | ghead -n -1

exit $exitcode

Note: This is macOS-specific, as written, but as long as your terminal supports images, you should be able to adapt it just fine.

alias sl=“ls“

alias fuck='sudo $(history -p \!\!)'

alias clip='xclip -selection clipboard'

When you pipe to this, for example ls | clip, it will stick the output of the command ran into the clipboard without needing to manually copy the output.

alias fucking='sudo' (my coworkers often used prettyplease instead)

This tmux wrapper is remarkably convenient:

Usage:

# Usage: t [session-name]
#
# With no arguments:
#   Lists existing tmux sessions, or prints "[No sessions]" if none exist.
#
# With a session name:
#   Attempts to attach to the named tmux session.
#   If the session does not exist, creates a new session with that name.
#
# Examples:
#   t            # Lists all tmux sessions
#   t dev        # Attaches to "dev" session or creates it if it doesn't exist

function t {
	if [[ -z $1 ]]; then
		tmux ls 2> /dev/null || echo "[No sessions]"
	else
		tmux attach -t $@ 2> /dev/null
		if [[ $? -ne 0 ]]; then
			tmux new -s $@
		fi
	fi
}

Here are probably the most useful ones. I prefer for rm to be interactive so I don’t accidentally delete something important and for mkdir to create a parent directory if necessary.

alias rm='rm -i'
alias mkdir='mkdir -p'
alias podup='podman-compose down && podman-compose pull && podman-compose up -d'

This extract function (which I didn’t make myself, I got it from when I was using nakeDeb) has been pretty useful too.

function extract()
{
     if [ -f $1 ] ; then
         case $1 in
             *.tar.bz2)   tar xvjf $1     ;;
             *.tar.gz)    tar xvzf $1     ;;
             *.bz2)       bunzip2 $1      ;;
             *.rar)       unrar x $1      ;;
             *.gz)        gunzip $1       ;;
             *.tar)       tar xvf $1      ;;
             *.tbz2)      tar xvjf $1     ;;
             *.tgz)       tar xvzf $1     ;;
             *.zip)       unzip $1        ;;
             *.Z)         uncompress $1   ;;
             *.7z)        7z x $1         ;;
             *.xz)        unxz $1         ;;
             *)           echo "'$1' cannot be extracted via >extract<" ;;
         esac
     else
         echo "'$1' is not a valid file"
     fi
}

#Create a dir and cd into it
mkcd() { mkdir -p "$@" && cd "$@"; }

jmpd(jump directory): fuzzy finds and opens directory with fzf

# fish shell
function jmpd
    set _selection $(fzf --walker=dir);
    if test -n "$_selection"
        cd "$_selection";
    end
end

Well, my full functions.sh won’t fit in a comment, so here’s 2 of my more unique functions that makes life a little easier when contributing to busy OSS projects:

# Git fork sync functions
# Assumes standard convention: origin = your fork, upstream = original repo
## Sync fork with upstream before starting work
gss() {
        # Safety checks
        if ! git rev-parse --git-dir >/dev/null 2>&1; then
                echo "❌ Not in a git repository"
                return 1
        fi

        # Check if we're in a git operation state
        local git_dir=$(git rev-parse --git-dir)
        if [[ -f "$git_dir/rebase-merge/interactive" ]] || [[ -d "$git_dir/rebase-apply" ]] || [[ -f "$git_dir/MERGE_HEAD" ]]; then
                echo "❌ Git operation in progress. Complete or abort current rebase/merge first:"
                echo "   git rebase --continue  (after resolving conflicts)"
                echo "   git rebase --abort     (to cancel rebase)"
                echo "   git merge --abort      (to cancel merge)"
                return 1
        fi

        # Check for uncommitted changes
        if ! git diff-index --quiet HEAD -- 2>/dev/null; then
                echo "❌ You have uncommitted changes. Commit or stash them first:"
                git status --porcelain
                echo ""
                echo "💡 Quick fix: git add . && git commit -m 'WIP' or git stash"
                return 1
        fi

        # Check for required remotes
        if ! git remote get-url upstream >/dev/null 2>&1; then
                echo "❌ No 'upstream' remote found. Add it first:"
                echo "   git remote add upstream <upstream-repo-url>"
                return 1
        fi

        if ! git remote get-url origin >/dev/null 2>&1; then
                echo "❌ No 'origin' remote found. Add it first:"
                echo "   git remote add origin <your-fork-url>"
                return 1
        fi

        local current_branch=$(git branch --show-current)

        # Ensure we have a main branch locally
        if ! git show-ref --verify --quiet refs/heads/main; then
                echo "❌ No local 'main' branch found. Create it first:"
                echo "   git checkout -b main upstream/main"
                return 1
        fi

        echo "🔄 Syncing fork with upstream..."
        echo "   Current branch: $current_branch"

        # Fetch with error handling
        if ! git fetch upstream; then
                echo "❌ Failed to fetch from upstream. Check network connection and remote URL."
                return 1
        fi

        echo "📌 Updating local main..."
        if ! git checkout main; then
                echo "❌ Failed to checkout main branch"
                return 1
        fi

        if ! git reset --hard upstream/main; then
                echo "❌ Failed to reset main to upstream/main"
                return 1
        fi

        echo "⬆️  Pushing updated main to fork..."
        if ! git push origin main; then
                echo "❌ Failed to push main to origin. Check push permissions."
                return 1
        fi

        echo "🔀 Rebasing feature branch on updated main..."
        if ! git checkout "$current_branch"; then
                echo "❌ Failed to checkout $current_branch"
                return 1
        fi

        if ! git rebase main; then
                echo "❌ Rebase failed due to conflicts. Resolve them and continue:"
                echo "   1. Edit conflicted files"
                echo "   2. git add <resolved-files>"
                echo "   3. git rebase --continue"
                echo "   Or: git rebase --abort to cancel"
                return 1
        fi

        echo "✅ Ready to work on branch: $current_branch"
}

## Sync fork and push feature branch
gsp() {
        # Safety checks
        if ! git rev-parse --git-dir >/dev/null 2>&1; then
                echo "❌ Not in a git repository"
                return 1
        fi

        local git_dir=$(git rev-parse --git-dir)
        if [[ -f "$git_dir/rebase-merge/interactive" ]] || [[ -d "$git_dir/rebase-apply" ]] || [[ -f "$git_dir/MERGE_HEAD" ]]; then
                echo "❌ Git operation in progress. Complete or abort first."
                return 1
        fi

        if ! git diff-index --quiet HEAD -- 2>/dev/null; then
                echo "❌ You have uncommitted changes. Commit or stash them first:"
                git status --porcelain
                return 1
        fi

        if ! git remote get-url upstream >/dev/null 2>&1; then
                echo "❌ No 'upstream' remote found"
                return 1
        fi

        if ! git remote get-url origin >/dev/null 2>&1; then
                echo "❌ No 'origin' remote found"
                return 1
        fi

        local current_branch=$(git branch --show-current)

        # Prevent pushing from main
        if [[ "$current_branch" == "main" ]]; then
                echo "❌ Cannot push from main branch. Switch to your feature branch first:"
                echo "   git checkout <your-feature-branch>"
                return 1
        fi

        # Show what we're about to do
        echo "⚠️  About to sync and push branch: $current_branch"
        echo "   This will:"
        echo "   • Fetch latest changes from upstream"
        echo "   • Rebase your branch on updated main"
        echo "   • Force-push to your fork (updates PR)"
        echo ""

        read -p "Continue? [y/N]: " -n 1 -r
        echo

        if [[ ! $REPLY =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]; then
                echo "❌ Operation cancelled"
                return 0
        fi

        echo "🔄 Final sync with upstream..."
        if ! git fetch upstream; then
                echo "❌ Failed to fetch from upstream"
                return 1
        fi

        echo "📌 Updating local main..."
        if ! git checkout main; then
                echo "❌ Failed to checkout main"
                return 1
        fi

        if ! git reset --hard upstream/main; then
                echo "❌ Failed to reset main"
                return 1
        fi

        if ! git push origin main; then
                echo "❌ Failed to push main to origin"
                return 1
        fi

        echo "🔀 Rebasing feature branch..."
        if ! git checkout "$current_branch"; then
                echo "❌ Failed to checkout $current_branch"
                return 1
        fi

        if ! git rebase main; then
                echo "❌ Rebase failed. Resolve conflicts and try again:"
                echo "   git add <resolved-files> && git rebase --continue"
                echo "   Then run 'gsp' again"
                return 1
        fi

        echo "🚀 Pushing feature branch to fork..."
        if ! git push origin "$current_branch" --force-with-lease; then
                echo "❌ Failed to push to origin. The branch may have been updated."
                echo "   Run 'git pull origin $current_branch' and try again"
                return 1
        fi

        echo "✅ Feature branch $current_branch successfully pushed to fork"
}

i use

alias kimg='kitty +kitten icat' 

to display images in my terminal pretty simple but nice

Since 720p downloading isn’t really available on yt-dlp anymore, I made an alias for it

alias yt720p="yt-dlp -S vcodec:h264,fps,res:720,acodec:m4a"

alias ed=$EDITOR

Extremely convenient on a qwerty keyboard.

This should probably be a default nowadays. Does even a single person here use the real ed ?

For doing stuff in a directory, I use a replacement for cd command.

For aliases:

alias +='git add'
alias +p='git add -p'
alias +u='git add -u'
alias -- -='cd -'
alias @='for i in'
alias c='cargo'
alias date='LANG=C date'
alias diff='cdiff'
alias gg='git grep -n'
alias grep='grep --color=auto'
alias ll='ls -o'
alias ls='ls -vFT0 --si --color=auto --time-style=long-iso'
alias rmd='rmdir'

I also have various small scripts and functions:

• a for package management (think apt but has simplified arguments which makes it faster to use in usual cases),
• e for opening file in Emacs,
• g for git,
• s for sudo.

And here’s ,:

$ cat ~/.local/bin/,
#!/bin/sh

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
	paste -sd,
else
	printf '%s\n' "$@" | paste -sd,
fi