Productivity & dotfiles¶

Shell setup, editor shortcuts, and tools that speed up daily work.

Dotfiles layout¶

Keep dotfiles in a git repo and symlink into $HOME:

~/dotfiles/
  bash/
    .bashrc
    .bash_aliases
    .bash_profile
  git/
    .gitconfig
    .gitignore_global
  tmux/
    .tmux.conf
  ssh/
    config

A minimal install script:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
DOTFILES="$HOME/dotfiles"
ln -sf "$DOTFILES/bash/.bashrc" "$HOME/.bashrc"
ln -sf "$DOTFILES/bash/.bash_aliases" "$HOME/.bash_aliases"
ln -sf "$DOTFILES/git/.gitconfig" "$HOME/.gitconfig"
ln -sf "$DOTFILES/tmux/.tmux.conf" "$HOME/.tmux.conf"

Shell aliases¶

Useful aliases to add to ~/.bash_aliases or ~/.zshrc:

# navigation
alias ..='cd ..'
alias ...='cd ../..'
alias ll='ls -lAh --color=auto'

# git shortcuts
alias gs='git status -sb'
alias gl='git log --oneline --graph --decorate -20'
alias gd='git diff --stat'

# safety nets
alias rm='rm -i'
alias cp='cp -i'
alias mv='mv -i'

# quick edits
alias vimrc='$EDITOR ~/.vimrc'
alias bashrc='$EDITOR ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc'

tmux basics¶

Start a named session (survives SSH disconnect):

tmux new -s work

Detach: Ctrl-b d. Reattach:

tmux attach -t work

Split panes:

Key	Action
`Ctrl-b "`	Split horizontally
`Ctrl-b %`	Split vertically
`Ctrl-b o`	Cycle panes
`Ctrl-b z`	Zoom current pane
`Ctrl-b [`	Scroll mode (q to exit)

Useful .tmux.conf settings:

set -g mouse on                     # mouse scroll and pane select
set -g history-limit 50000
set -g default-terminal "tmux-256color"
bind r source-file ~/.tmux.conf \; display "Reloaded!"

fzf — fuzzy finder¶

Install via your package manager or:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/junegunn/fzf.git ~/.fzf
~/.fzf/install

After install, Ctrl-r gives an interactive history search and Ctrl-t fuzzy-finds files. Pipe anything into fzf:

# interactive branch checkout
git branch | fzf | xargs git checkout

# kill a process interactively
ps aux | fzf | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill

ripgrep — fast search¶

rg respects .gitignore automatically and is significantly faster than grep -r:

rg "TODO" src/               # recursive, colour output
rg -l "import requests"      # list files only
rg -i "error" --type py      # case-insensitive, Python files only
rg "fn \w+" --type rust -n   # with line numbers

SSH ~/.ssh/config¶

Stop typing long hostnames and options. Example ~/.ssh/config:

Host bastion
    HostName 203.0.113.42
    User deploy
    Port 2222
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Host dev
    HostName 10.10.10.50
    User root
    ForwardAgent yes
    StrictHostKeyChecking no

Host *
    ServerAliveInterval 60
    ServerAliveCountMax 3
    ControlMaster auto
    ControlPath ~/.ssh/cm-%r@%h:%p
    ControlPersist 10m

ControlMaster / ControlPersist reuse one TCP connection for multiple SSH sessions to the same host — subsequent ssh dev commands are instant.

Editor shortcuts (VS Code / vim)¶

VS Code:

Shortcut	Action
`Ctrl-P`	Quick-open file
`Ctrl-Shift-P`	Command palette
`Ctrl-` `	Toggle terminal
`Alt-↑/↓`	Move line up/down
`Ctrl-D`	Multi-cursor on next match

Vim essentials:

gg / G          — top / bottom of file
Ctrl-f / Ctrl-b — page down / up
*               — search for word under cursor
:s/old/new/g    — replace in current line
:%s/old/new/gc  — replace in whole file with confirmation
:w !sudo tee %  — save as root

See also: Linux CLI recipes for rsync and Git workflows for worktrees — both pair well with a tidy dotfiles setup.