Ask HN: What is your favorite lightweight tool or CLI utility in 2026?

Tools like ripgrep, fzf, and htop have saved me countless hours over the years. What small utilities do you rely on daily?

21 points | by pranav_tech26 2 days ago

20 comments

  • amterp 1 day ago
    Big fan of gron[0] and zoxide[1]. Gron for flattening and viewing JSON, and zoxide (z) for fuzzily jumping around on my system or on remote systems with z installed.

    Also been using Rad [2] (disclaimer: am author) to replace my suite of Bash scripts and write new ones, quite happy with one atm which sets reminders e.g. 'remind 2h check the CI build' which will give me an OS reminder in two hours, I use it a ton at work.

    [0] https://github.com/tomnomnom/gron [1] https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide [2] https://github.com/amterp/rad

  • wbnns 2 days ago
    GitHub CLI -- I'm using it every day and just about anything I'd want to do on GitHub, I can do straight from the command line

    https://cli.github.com/

  • charlie90 2 days ago
    Everything/es.exe for searching every file on disk, its nice for AI agents to use
  • rft 2 days ago
    ssh, scp, tmux, (grml-)zsh, grep, less, file, tar, git

    The time saving of a well filled ~/.ssh/config is impressive, especially once you start juggling ProxyJump hops.

  • vismit2000 2 days ago
    dust: https://github.com/bootandy/dust - This has ben immensely useful for me
  • ddxv 2 days ago
    ssh and scp just never fails to impress

    -J for jumping -L for port forwarding -X for pulling remote applications to view on my laptop (waypipe for Wayland)

    Adding all those, and ips and whatnot to .ssh/config so I just type:

    ssh foo

    • aborsy 1 day ago
      SFTP is just simpler and better, if available.
    • fragmede 2 days ago
      setup LocalCommand, in ~/.ssh/config, so your config files get copied to every server you connect to, so you have all your aliases and scripts.
      • rft 2 days ago
        I intentionally avoid this, especially if I am not the only one connecting to a server. I see potentially breaking others' expectations for my convenience as a clear downside. Plus there is a level of paranoia there, I might have unintentionally included a credential in some config that gets copied over. That potentially increases the blast radius of a server compromise beyond what is strictly required for that specific server. I might copy over some scripts into a directory not in $PATH, easy enough to add it to my shell session if needed, CTRL+R helps as well.
        • fragmede 2 days ago
          ...why are you sharing user accounts in this day and age? Yes, absolutely, don't mess up the shared space everyone uses, but why are you sharing that space in the first place?
      • mmh0000 2 days ago
        I’m not saying yours does, but be careful with LocalCommand, it will often break rsync and other tools that use ssh behind the scenes.
  • scary-size 2 days ago
    https://github.com/rupa/z (z - jump around)
  • nozzlegear 2 days ago
    Gotta be jujutsu. I've completely stopped using git and use jj everywhere instead. It works so much better for my workflow.
  • justsomehnguy 2 days ago

        user: pranav_tech26
        created: 16 hours ago
        karma: 7
    • absoluteunit1 2 days ago
      Was going to comment this as well.

      Fresh account with two Ask HN questions that are bound to get replies

    • fragmede 2 days ago
      ...yes?
      • justsomehnguy 2 days ago
        No.

        EDIT: also check their comment history.

        • fragmede 2 days ago
          Would you mind just saying what you mean?
          • karlsefni 2 days ago
            GP is probably implying it's a bot account doing some kind of engagement-farming.
  • slang800 2 days ago
    jq
  • rhysha 2 days ago
    bearer-cli for static application security testing
    • illegalbyte2 2 days ago
      This looks great, thanks for sharing.
  • aborsy 1 day ago
    Find, fzf, vim, ssh, …
  • argus95 2 days ago
    leaf (Terminal Markdown previewer)
  • soupspaces 2 days ago
    tmux tealdeer zoxide
  • taf2 1 day ago
    vim, ls , cd, grep, cat being close seconds
  • wseqyrku 2 days ago
    rustc
  • mansi1010 2 days ago
    screen
    • winrid 2 days ago
      Is there any advantage of screen over tmux? I've kind of switched, I don't see a reason to go back.
      • gforce_de 2 days ago
        screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

        ...and easy session sharing

        • winrid 1 day ago
          Ah ok true, I forgot I use it for serial stuff very occasionally too.
  • tmpsvc2695f5 1 day ago
    [dead]
  • gangaasoonu 2 days ago
    [dead]
  • mukundzzha 2 days ago
    [dead]