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?

19 points | by pranav_tech26 23 hours ago

17 comments

  • wbnns 10 hours 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 16 hours ago
    Everything/es.exe for searching every file on disk, its nice for AI agents to use
    [-]
  • rft 18 hours 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 17 hours ago
    dust: https://github.com/bootandy/dust - This has ben immensely useful for me
  • scary-size 15 hours ago
    https://github.com/rupa/z (z - jump around)
  • ddxv 18 hours 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

    [-]
    • fragmede 18 hours 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 18 hours 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 17 hours 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 14 hours 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.
  • nozzlegear 18 hours ago
    Gotta be jujutsu. I've completely stopped using git and use jj everywhere instead. It works so much better for my workflow.
  • taf2 6 hours ago
    vim, ls , cd, grep, cat being close seconds
  • slang800 19 hours ago
    jq
  • rhysha 22 hours ago
    bearer-cli for static application security testing
    [-]
    • illegalbyte2 18 hours ago
      This looks great, thanks for sharing.
  • argus95 10 hours ago
    leaf (Terminal Markdown previewer)
  • justsomehnguy 18 hours ago 

        user: pranav_tech26
    created: 16 hours ago
    karma: 7
    [-]
    • absoluteunit1 9 hours ago
      Was going to comment this as well.

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

    • fragmede 18 hours ago
      ...yes?
      [-]
      • justsomehnguy 18 hours ago
        No.

        EDIT: also check their comment history.

        [-]
        • fragmede 18 hours ago
          Would you mind just saying what you mean?
          [-]
          • karlsefni 17 hours ago
            GP is probably implying it's a bot account doing some kind of engagement-farming.
  • wseqyrku 16 hours ago
    rustc
  • mansi1010 18 hours ago
    screen
    [-]
    • winrid 16 hours 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 12 hours ago
        screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

        ...and easy session sharing

  • soupspaces 20 hours ago
    tmux tealdeer zoxide
  • mukundzzha 13 hours ago
    [dead]
  • gangaasoonu 19 hours ago
    [dead]