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Top 23 Command-line Open-Source Projects
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ui-ux-pro-max-skill
An AI skill that provides design intelligence for building professional UI/UX across multiple platforms.
Project mention: Claude Code Skills Worth Trying: From Vague Idea to Finished Feature | dev.to | 2026-09-14UI/UX Pro Max gives Claude a searchable design knowledge base covering styles, palettes, typography, UX guidance, chart choices, and stack-specific implementation recommendations.
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AppSignal
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Windows Terminal
The new Windows Terminal and the original Windows console host, all in the same place!
>I doubt that people think it's the engineering teams that are the problem
Did you forget Microsoft engineering response to Casey Muratori "Extremely slow performance when processing virtual terminal sequences"?
"I believe what you’re doing is describing something that might be considered an entire doctoral research project in performant terminal emulation as “extremely simple” somewhat combatively."
https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/10362#issuecomm...
followed by Casey producing evidence for his 'extremely simple' claim in couple of days.
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Mole
🐹 Clean, uninstall, analyze, optimize, and monitor your Mac. Free open-source CLI, plus a native Mac app.
Project mention: Show HN: Mole – Deep research agent for your terminal | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-08-14 -
ripgrep
ripgrep recursively searches directories for a regex pattern while respecting your gitignore
I like burntsushi's work because it's well documented, split modularly into libraries/applications, and covers the gamut from low- to high-level. I use these three tools which he maintains:
Low level: memchr [1]
Medium level: Regex (Rust crate) [2];
High level: ripgrep [3];
Other names to look out for are the previously aforementioned Wojciech Muła, as well as Daniel Lemire (of simdjson [4][5]). Not SIMD-specific, but Data-Oriented Design can be a big help in terms of thinking about SIMD and cache-friendly data layout (as well as trimming down the work that the computer needs to do, generally). I've talked that to death, so I'll just link those comments here [6].
1. https://docs.rs/memchr/latest/memchr/
2. https://docs.rs/regex/latest/regex/
3. https://github.com/burntsushi/ripgrep
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlvKAT7SZIQ
5. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.08318
6. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
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tldr is perfect when man pages are too detailed and you only need the common examples.
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But for reading code, scripts, configs, Markdown, YAML, JSON, or anything where your eyes are expected to survive the experience, bat is much nicer.
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SaaSHub
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Project mention: 5 Practical AI Coding Tricks Learned from Top GitHub Trending Agents | dev.to | 2026-09-28
If you’ve watched GitHub Trending over the past month, one shift is impossible to ignore: AI coding has moved from simple code completion to autonomous terminal agents like Aider, Cline, and Claude Code.
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But as some of my projects grew, I found simple text to be limiting. So, I got to cooking (in Go + BubbleTea) on a TUI project management system that would be commitable as simple Markdown text..
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and it gives you a Rust dependency.
> $ rinku lookup https://github.com/spf13/cobra
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Project mention: I Replaced a 461-Million-Downloads-a-Month Glob Package With One Rust File | dev.to | 2026-09-07
fast-glob was the Package Killer target, but it was not the only comparison worth making. Developers often reach for fd or ripgrep when they need to locate files from a terminal. They are mature native tools with excellent defaults, so this was not an attempt to manufacture an easy win.
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Project mention: PM2 process management for Node.js - Why You Need PM2 Process... | dev.to | 2026-01-02
Setting this up is a breeze. I’ll walk you through the steps I use for every project. Whether it’s a small side project or a big enterprise app, the process is the same. First, you need to have Node. js installed. Then, you can grab the PM2 on GitHub package.
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Project mention: Yazi: Fast terminal file manager written in Rust, based on async I/O | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-09-20
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Project mention: .NET TUI Frameworks Compared: Terminal.Gui, Spectre.Console, and RazorConsole | dev.to | 2026-09-29
Yes, at the programming-model level. Both make terminal interfaces composable and state-driven using concepts familiar from Web development. Ink uses React and JSX/TSX; RazorConsole uses Razor and C#. This does not imply compatible APIs, identical features, or equivalent performance. Ink documentation · RazorConsole documentation
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Project mention: Zoxide Setup That Actually Works: Install, Initialize, and Verify | dev.to | 2026-08-07
Disclosure: I maintain zoxide.org as an independent guide site. It is not the official zoxide project. Commands in this post were checked against the official zoxide repository.
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Project mention: Txt: A fast, keyboard-driven terminal text editor for engineers | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-09-11
A comparison with editors like micro https://github.com/micro-editor/micro or fresh https://github.com/sinelaw/fresh (discussed in the comments) would make more sense than one with vim and emacs. The shortcuts are CUA based. And to me these editors feel more like using GUI editor like sublime text for example. And that's nice.
While vim and emacs have their advantages which I don't want to discuss here, they are also the "big players" with their own philosophy, shortcuts and commands. Which is a hassle to learn when you're used to GUI editors.
Why not let a little space for users who don't want to re-learn how to edit a file ?
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Project mention: Benchmarking SnaxVim's Startup Performance Against Popular Neovim Distros | dev.to | 2026-09-21
Benchmark Tools: hyperfine v1.20.0, vim-startuptime v1.3.2
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winget-cli
WinGet is the Windows Package Manager. This project includes a CLI (Command Line Interface), PowerShell modules, and a COM (Component Object Model) API (Application Programming Interface).
Project mention: Conquering Windows Server 2022: How to Manually Sideload Winget (Without the Microsoft Store) | dev.to | 2026-05-10Navigate to the official Winget releases page: Github winget releases
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fastfetch
A maintained, feature-rich and performance oriented, neofetch like system information tool.
View on GitHub
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SaaSHub
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NOTE:
The open source projects on this list are ordered by number of github stars.
The number of mentions indicates repo mentiontions in the last 12 Months or
since we started tracking (Dec 2020).
Command-line discussion
Command-line related posts
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Fx 40
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.NET TUI Frameworks Compared: Terminal.Gui, Spectre.Console, and RazorConsole
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Concevoir une CLI moderne en .NET : retour d’expérience
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5 Practical AI Coding Tricks Learned from Top GitHub Trending Agents
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The essential terminal commands for your server
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Benchmarking SnaxVim's Startup Performance Against Popular Neovim Distros
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Why Claude Code keeps writing shell commands that fail on your Mac
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A note from our sponsor - AppSignal
www.appsignal.com | 8 Oct 2026
Index
What are some of the best open-source Command-line projects? This list will help you:
| # | Project | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ui-ux-pro-max-skill | 132,842 |
| 2 | Windows Terminal | 104,998 |
| 3 | Mole | 69,582 |
| 4 | ripgrep | 68,818 |
| 5 | tldr | 63,815 |
| 6 | bat | 60,668 |
| 7 | PowerShell | 55,624 |
| 8 | aider | 49,369 |
| 9 | bubbletea | 45,325 |
| 10 | cobra | 44,680 |
| 11 | fd | 44,632 |
| 12 | PM2 | 43,298 |
| 13 | yazi | 42,680 |
| 14 | cheat.sh | 41,797 |
| 15 | Ink | 40,023 |
| 16 | zoxide | 39,859 |
| 17 | linux-command | 37,088 |
| 18 | modern-unix | 33,029 |
| 19 | micro-editor | 29,678 |
| 20 | hyperfine | 28,944 |
| 21 | cmder | 27,010 |
| 22 | winget-cli | 26,482 |
| 23 | fastfetch | 24,951 |
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