Techniques I Use to Create a Great User Experience for Shell Scripts

1. glow

   1 68 17,833 8.9 Go

   Render markdown on the CLI, with pizzazz! 💅🏻

   

2. InfluxDB

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   InfluxDB – Built for High-Performance Time Series Workloads. InfluxDB 3 OSS is now GA. Transform, enrich, and act on time series data directly in the database. Automate critical tasks and eliminate the need to move data externally. Download now.

   

3. no_color

   2 31 278 6.4 HTML

   Website data for no-color.org

   

4. steam-for-linux

   3 467 4,410 3.2

   Issue tracking for the Steam for Linux beta client

   

   It happens to the best of us

   https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3671

5. ShellCheck

   4 499 37,378 8.0 Haskell

   ShellCheck, a static analysis tool for shell scripts

   

   It's been so long since I used it seriously I couldn't tell you.

   There's over 1000 open issues on the GitHub repo, and over 100 contain "false positive". I recognize several of these at first glance.

   https://github.com/koalaman/shellcheck/issues?q=is%3Aissue+i...

6. CG-SQL-author

   5 3 14 9.7 C

   CG-SQL Author's Cut: CG/SQL is a compiler that converts a SQL Stored Procedure like language into C for SQLite. SQLite has no stored procedures of its own. CG/CQL can also generate other useful artifacts for testing and schema maintenance.

   

   Few months ago, I wrote a bash script for an open-source project.

   I created a small awk util that I used throughout the script to style the output. I found it very convenient. I wonder if something similar already exists.

   Some screenshots in the PR: https://github.com/ricomariani/CG-SQL-author/pull/18

   Full implementation here:

7. nerdctl

   6 38 8,840 9.9 Go

   contaiNERD CTL - Docker-compatible CLI for containerd, with support for Compose, Rootless, eStargz, OCIcrypt, IPFS, ...

   

   Here's a script that left me in awe the first time I saw it:

   https://github.com/containerd/nerdctl/blob/main/extras/rootl...

   I have since copied this pattern for many scripts: logging functions, grouping all global vars and constants at the top and creating subcommands using shift.

8. warp

   7 6 1,934 0.0 Rust

   Create self-contained single binary applications (by dgiagio)

   

   "linux-x64.warp-packer,https://github.com/dgiagio/warp/releases"

9. SaaSHub

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10. Gradle

    8 103 17,645 10.0 Groovy

    Adaptable, fast automation for all

    

    "gradle,https://gradle.org"

11. KeenWrite

    9 10 - -

    The build-template can then be reused to enhance other shell scripts. Note how by defining the command-line arguments as data you can provide a general solution to usage information:

    https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/-/blob/main/scripts/...

    Further, the same command-line arguments list can be used to parse the options:

    https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/-/blob/main/scripts/...

    If you want to get even more clever, it's possible to have the template parse the command-line arguments automatically for any particular script. Tweak the arguments list slightly by prefixing the name of the variable to assign to the option:

        ARGUMENTS+=(

12. bash-modules

    10 8 137 0.0 Shell

    Useful modules for bash

    

    You may like bash-modules then: https://github.com/vlisivka/bash-modules/tree/master/bash-mo...

13. bash3boilerplate

    11 5 2,159 3.1 Shell

    Templates to write better Bash scripts

    

    I can highly recommend using bash3boilerplate (https://github.com/kvz/bash3boilerplate) if you're writing BASH scripts and don't care about them running on systems that don't use BASH.

    It provides logging facilities with colour usage for the terminal (not for redirecting out to a file) and also decent command line parsing. It uses a great idea to specify the calling parameters in the help/usage information, so it's quick and easy to use and ensures that you have meaningful information about what parameters the script accepts.

    Also, please don't write shell scripts without running them through ShellCheck. The shell has so many footguns that can be avoided by correctly following its recommendations.

14. ripgrep

    12 366 52,344 7.6 Rust

    ripgrep recursively searches directories for a regex pattern while respecting your gitignore

    

15. fd

    13 191 37,914 8.7 Rust

    A simple, fast and user-friendly alternative to 'find'

    

16. fzf

    14 430 70,144 9.7 Go

    :cherry_blossom: A command-line fuzzy finder

    

17. shpy

    15 1 - -

    And only ever parse plain text once on the input from netstat. For your amusement/horror I present "ShPy": https://gitlab.com/tpmoney/shpy

18. SaaSHub

    www.saashub.com featured

    SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives

    

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