5 Terminal Tricks That Will Make You 10x Faster

The terminal is where developers spend half their day. Most of us use 20% of its power. Here's the 80% that actually matters.

1. Fuzzy Finding with fzf

# Install
brew install fzf

# Add to shell ( ~/.zshrc )
eval "$(fzf --zsh)"

Now type vim **<Tab> and fuzzy-find any file. Or kill <name> to find and kill processes.

2. Tmux Sessions

# Create named session
tmux new -s project

# Detach with Ctrl+b d

# Reattach
tmux attach -t project

# Switch sessions quickly
tmux switch -t <session>

Never lose your work when SSH disconnects. Never.

3. ripgrep Over Grep

# 10x faster than grep
rg "function_name" --type ts

# With context
rg "TODO" -C 3

# Just filenames
rg -l "error" *.js

4. Zsh Aliases That Actually Help

# ~/.zshrc
alias gs="git status"
alias gco="git checkout"
alias gl="git log --oneline -20"
alias dev="cd ~/projects/dev"

Small things. Massive time savings over years.

5. Process Substitution

# Diff two command outputs without temp files
diff <(npm test) <(npm run test:ci)

# Compare directory listings
diff <(ls src) <(ls dist)

No more creating temporary files for comparisons.

Your terminal setup is personal. Start with one trick, use it for a week, then add the next. The compounding effect is real.