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Terminal

General terminal tricks. Tips for specific CLI tools live in adjacent files (11_text_tools.md, 12_project_workflow.md).

Tip 10.1: Keyboard Shortcuts You're Probably Ignoring​

Line editing without the arrow keys.

Ctrl + A     Jump to beginning of line
Ctrl + E     Jump to end of line
Ctrl + W     Delete one word backward
Ctrl + U     Clear everything before cursor
Ctrl + K     Clear everything after cursor
Ctrl + L     Clear the screen (same as 'clear')
Ctrl + C     Cancel current command
Ctrl + Z     Suspend current process (resume with 'fg')
Alt  + F     Jump forward one word
Alt  + B     Jump backward one word

Most useful combos: Ctrl+A then Ctrl+K to wipe a line. Alt+F / Alt+B to hop word-by-word in long commands.

Tip 10.2: History Expansion​

Reuse pieces of previous commands without retyping or arrowing up.

!!              Repeat the last command
sudo !!         Repeat last command with sudo
!$              Last argument of previous command
!^              First argument of previous command
!*              All arguments of previous command
!vim            Repeat last command starting with 'vim'
!vim:p          Print it without running (then up-arrow to edit)
^old^new        Re-run last command, replacing 'old' with 'new'
!!:gs/old/new   Re-run with all occurrences replaced

^chekcout^checkout fixes a typo in the previous command. !$ is gold after a long path: touch /etc/nginx/sites-available/foo.conf then vim !$.

Tip 10.3: Run Things in Background​

Append & to send a command to the background — terminal frees up immediately.

npm run build &

You'll see [1] 23456 (job ID and PID).

Commands:

jobs            List background jobs
fg              Bring most recent job to foreground
fg %1           Bring job 1 to foreground
bg              Resume a suspended job in background

Shortcut:

Ctrl + Z        Suspend the current foreground job

Forgot the &? Ctrl+Z to suspend, then bg to keep it running in the background.

Tip 10.4: Pipe to the Clipboard​

Skip the mouse — pipe command output straight into the clipboard.

# macOS
cat some-file.txt | pbcopy

# Linux (X11)
cat some-file.txt | xclip -selection clipboard

Common uses:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | pbcopy        # copy SSH public key
git rev-parse HEAD | pbcopy           # copy current commit SHA
echo "$LONG_TOKEN" | pbcopy           # copy a long string

Reverse direction: pbpaste (macOS) or xclip -o -selection clipboard (Linux).