Elite CLI Tools

Elite CLI tooling for efficient shell operations with optimized token usage. Use when executing shell commands, traversing directories, or manipulating files...

PRIMARY DIRECTIVE

Prefer these modern CLI utilities over legacy POSIX tools (find, cat, sed, grep, awk, diff, man). They produce cleaner, more structured output and reduce token waste.

Note on binary names: On Debian/Ubuntu, some binaries are renamed to avoid conflicts: fd → fdfind, bat → batcat. On other distros they use their upstream names. Adapt accordingly.

Quick Reference

#	Tool	Replaces	Binary	Primary Use
1	fd	find	fdfind	Fast file discovery
2	bat	cat/less	batcat	File viewing with syntax highlighting
3	sd	sed	sd	Intuitive find & replace
4	ast-grep	grep/rg	sg	AST-based code search & rewrite
5	jc	awk/cut	jc	CLI output → JSON
6	gron	jq (exploration)	gron	JSON → greppable assignments
7	yq	sed on YAML	yq	YAML/JSON/XML/CSV processor
8	difftastic	diff	difft	Structural syntax-aware diffs
9	tealdeer	man	tldr	Concise command examples
10	html2text	raw HTML parsing	html2text	HTML → clean Markdown

Detailed Tool Guide

For full descriptions, rationale, and extended examples for each tool, read references/tools-deep-dive.md.