Ask HN: What is your favorite lightweight tool or CLI utility in 2026?

19 pointsposted a day ago
by pranav_tech26

Item id: 49314700

29 Comments

wbnns

11 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/

rft

19 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.

ddxv

20 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

19 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

19 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

18 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

15 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

20 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

8 hours ago

vim, ls , cd, grep, cat being close seconds

rhysha

a day ago

bearer-cli for static application security testing

illegalbyte2

20 hours ago

This looks great, thanks for sharing.

justsomehnguy

20 hours ago

    user: pranav_tech26
    created: 16 hours ago
    karma: 7

absoluteunit1

10 hours ago

Was going to comment this as well.

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

fragmede

20 hours ago

...yes?

justsomehnguy

19 hours ago

No.

EDIT: also check their comment history.

fragmede

19 hours ago

Would you mind just saying what you mean?

karlsefni

19 hours ago

GP is probably implying it's a bot account doing some kind of engagement-farming.

argus95

12 hours ago

leaf (Terminal Markdown previewer)

mansi1010

20 hours ago

screen

winrid

17 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

14 hours ago

screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

...and easy session sharing