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?

18 points | by pranav_tech26 11 hours ago

14 comments

  • charlie90 4 hours ago
    Everything/es.exe for searching every file on disk, its nice for AI agents to use
  • scary-size 3 hours ago
    https://github.com/rupa/z (z - jump around)
  • vismit2000 5 hours ago
    dust: https://github.com/bootandy/dust - This has ben immensely useful for me
  • rft 6 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.

  • nozzlegear 7 hours ago
    Gotta be jujutsu. I've completely stopped using git and use jj everywhere instead. It works so much better for my workflow.
  • rhysha 10 hours ago
    bearer-cli for static application security testing
    • illegalbyte2 7 hours ago
      This looks great, thanks for sharing.
  • ddxv 7 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 7 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 6 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 5 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 2 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.
  • justsomehnguy 7 hours ago

        user: pranav_tech26
        created: 16 hours ago
        karma: 7
    • fragmede 7 hours ago
      ...yes?
      • justsomehnguy 7 hours ago
        No.

        EDIT: also check their comment history.

        • fragmede 6 hours ago
          Would you mind just saying what you mean?
          • karlsefni 6 hours ago
            GP is probably implying it's a bot account doing some kind of engagement-farming.
  • slang800 8 hours ago
    jq
  • wseqyrku 5 hours ago
    rustc
  • mansi1010 7 hours ago
    screen
    • winrid 4 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 1 hour ago
        screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

        ...and easy session sharing

  • soupspaces 8 hours ago
    tmux tealdeer zoxide
  • mukundzzha 1 hour ago
    [dead]
  • gangaasoonu 7 hours ago
    [dead]