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Show HN: Greppers – fast CLI cheat sheet with instant copy and shareable search

65 points by shellsteady 1y ago

I kept re-Googling the same flags, so I built a tiny, fast directory of copy-ready CLI commands. It’s static (vanilla JS), instant search, keyboard nav (↑/↓ + Enter), favorites (localStorage), and linkable queries. Examples: • grep errors → https://www.greppers.com/?q=grep%20error%20logs https://www.greppers.com/?q=grep%20error%20logs • list open ports (macOS) → https://www.greppers.com/?q=list%20open%20ports https://www.greppers.com/?q=list%20open%20ports • show git branch graph → https://www.greppers.com/?q=git%20graph https://www.greppers.com/?q=git%20graph • tail with colors → https://www.greppers.com/?q=tail%20colors https://www.greppers.com/?q=tail%20colors Tech notes: static site on Netlify, no build system. Data is a JSON file; favorites persist via localStorage. Search is client-side; queries are linkable with ?q= and you can filter favorites with fav=1. Dangerous commands show a confirm before copying. Headers (HSTS, nosniff) + sitemap/robots are set. Planned next: more commands/recipes (docker, systemctl, networking), offline PWA, and a simple import/export for favorites. Suggest a missing command: https://www.greppers.com/submit.html https://www.greppers.com/submit.html I’m looking for gaps and better real-world examples. Feedback welcome.

shellsteady 1y ago
Tech notes: static site on Netlify, no build system. Data is a JSON file; favorites persist via localStorage. Search is client-side; queries are linkable with ?q= and you can filter favorites with fav=1. Dangerous commands show a confirm before copying. Headers (HSTS, nosniff) + sitemap/robots are set. Planned next: more commands/recipes (docker, systemctl, networking), offline PWA, and a simple import/export for favorites. If something’s obviously missing, drop it here or via the form: https://www.greppers.com/submit.html https://www.greppers.com/submit.html
- dang 1y ago
  I've added this to the text at the top, so more people will see it. Btw - if you're replying to other commenters, can you do so by clicking the 'reply' link at the end of their comment? That will place your response underneath the comment you're referencing, which will make the thread much more readable. Currently, your comments are all going to the top level, where it's hard to connect them with the other posts you're replying to. I'm going to try to move them manually to the right places, but it's not clear what those are!
crashabr 1y ago
Nice job. Though it would be more useful to me as a cli app. A different take on tldr with live filtering of results based on what you're typing
- shellsteady 1y ago
  Thanks! A full CLI is on my list, but you can use Greppers as a terminal app today with fzf: # add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc gpr() { curl -fsSL https://www.greppers.com/data/commands.json | jq -r '.[] | [.title, .command, (.tags|join(","))] | @tsv' | fzf --with-nth=1,3 --delimiter='\t' \ --header='type to filter • Enter=copy' \ --preview='printf "⟪ %s ⟫\n\n%s\n" {1} {2}' \ --bind 'enter:execute-silent(echo -n {2} | (pbcopy || xclip -selection clipboard || wl-copy || xsel -ib || clip.exe))+accept' } # usage: run `gpr`, type to filter, Enter copies the command
- rancar2 1y ago
  You may be looking for do thing like this tool: https://github.com/closedloop-technologies/autocomplete-sh https://github.com/closedloop-technologies/autocomplete-sh
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
shellsteady 1y ago
[dead]
ProofHouse 1y ago
UX tip, reduce SIGNIFICANTLY or reposition the suggest a command box. At least on mobile the actual search results are way under it (which shouldn’t be), and it takes a ton of space for a rare use item
wingmanjd 1y ago
Neat resource! On FF Linux, when I click on a copy command (e.g. `Grep errors in syslog`, the clipboard only contains "grep ", including those two spaces.
- shellsteady 1y ago
  Thanks for the heads-up. I pushed a fix so the Copy button pulls from the data model (not DOM) and added a clipboard fallback for stricter browsers. Can you try a hard refresh and see if it still truncates? If it still reproduces for them, we’ll grab their FF version and distro, but this should squash the “grep ” symptom.
kiitos 1y ago
is this not just `tldr`? https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr
- shellsteady 1y ago
  Great pointer—love tldr. Greppers is a different slice: • Copy-first & tiny: one or two opinionated incantations with sensible flags, not an exhaustive page. • Instant search & links: live filtering, ?q= deep links, favorites (local), and keyboard nav; easy to share a specific query. • Curation over coverage: mixes cross-tool “recipes” (e.g., lsof + networking, systemd log views) rather than a page per command. • Safety: “dangerous” commands prompt before copying. They’re complementary: tldr is a great reference with multiple examples per command; Greppers is for the 2–3 commands you re-google at 1am with the exact flags you want to copy. If there’s a command where the tldr example is clearly better, I’ll happily mirror it or link out.
  - kiitos 1y ago
    huh? there is no concept of any single "default incantation" of any command -- every command always has multiple "incantations" depending on what you want to do with it nobody would ever directly copy and execute any "exact flags" for any command based on a query string, surely this is not what you are suggesting? I can get on board with a tool that's like tldr but broader-scoped, returning sets of commands that you could choose to run based on input query, but isn't this just claude?
    - anon7000 1y ago
      That’s exactly what this is though, it’s giving you the precise “incantation” you need based on what you’re trying to do. Like “list 20 biggest files in current directory”
      - kiitos 1y ago
        huh? "list 20 biggest files in the current directory" is a search query, or a llm prompt input, it's not any kind of precise incantation.. ? I mean if greppers is just translating queries like that to related command-calls, that's fine but bizarre and nothing that would require a community-contribution-based database of mappings, that's just a search engine and/or llm mapping problem...
coxmi 1y ago
rsync needs some love on this. The most memorable args for me are `-mrchivas`, because together they sound somewhat like a name (“Mister Chivas”) (I drop the -a depending on whether archive is needed, Mr. Chivs sounds fun too)
- shellsteady 1y ago
  Great comment, and it’s a nice on-ramp to add rsync properly. Paste-ready reply for HN Good call. I just added a handful of rsync recipes: • rsync -avh --progress SRC/ DEST/ (archive, human sizes, progress) • rsync -azP -e ssh SRC/ user@host:/path/ (SSH, compress, resume) • rsync -avh --delete SRC/ DEST/ (mirror with delete — ) • rsync -avh --checksum SRC/ DEST/ (checksum verify; slower) • rsync -avh --exclude='.git' --exclude='node_modules' SRC/ DEST/ (exclude patterns) • rsync -azP --bwlimit=2m -e ssh … (bandwidth limit) • bonus mnemonic: rsync -mrchivas … → m prune-empty, r recursive, c checksum, h human, i itemize, v verbose, a archive, s safe (note: -a already implies -r, and -c slows it down) If there’s a specific rsync you reach for, drop it and I’ll add it too.
  - foreslion 1y ago
    You left the LLM response in the second paragraph.
henrebotha 1y ago
Please move the "Help grow the community!" banner below the search results. I thought all my searches were coming up blank. On mobile, that banner takes up an enormous amount of space.
- shellsteady 1y ago
  Good call. I moved the “Help grow the community!” banner below the results and collapsed it on mobile so it doesn’t crowd search. Thanks for the heads-up—refresh and it should feel a lot cleaner.
wangbang 1y ago
Would focus more development on ensuring a responsive front end. On mobile, the website is quite difficult to navigate due to overlapping elements. Such as the search bar.
defrost 1y ago
> better real-world examples Simon Sheppard's CLI Command notes and forums* - https://ss64.com/ https://ss64.com/ * Now regrettably read-only thanks to the UK safety Act: https://ss64.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=587 https://ss64.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=587
- shellsteady 1y ago
  SS64 is excellent—encyclopedic and battle-tested. Greppers is intentionally “copy-first”: a few opinionated, ready-to-paste incantations with flags I actually use at 1am, plus instant search and linkable queries. I’m adding lightweight “More info” links on each card (SS64, man7, tldr) so folks can jump from the quick copy to the deep docs. If you’ve got specific SS64 pages you consider must-reads for certain commands, drop them and I’ll wire those in first.
mxuribe 1y ago
This is very neat! One small nit: Recipes and Favorites seems to not work (at all)...on firefox 142.0.1 nor ungoogled chromium version 139.0.7258.154 - both via fedora 41. ;-)
pluc 1y ago
I like command line fu: https://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse https://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse
sharts 1y ago
This is cool. I wonder if there is any kind of tool out there that might provide some fuzzy auto-suggestions in shell from a variety of sources like this.

65 points by shellsteady 1y ago

shellsteady 1y ago

Tech notes: static site on Netlify, no build system. Data is a JSON file; favorites persist via localStorage. Search is client-side; queries are linkable with ?q= and you can filter favorites with fav=1. Dangerous commands show a confirm before copying. Headers (HSTS, nosniff) + sitemap/robots are set. Planned next: more commands/recipes (docker, systemctl, networking), offline PWA, and a simple import/export for favorites. If something’s obviously missing, drop it here or via the form: https://www.greppers.com/submit.html https://www.greppers.com/submit.html

dang 1y ago
I've added this to the text at the top, so more people will see it. Btw - if you're replying to other commenters, can you do so by clicking the 'reply' link at the end of their comment? That will place your response underneath the comment you're referencing, which will make the thread much more readable. Currently, your comments are all going to the top level, where it's hard to connect them with the other posts you're replying to. I'm going to try to move them manually to the right places, but it's not clear what those are!

crashabr 1y ago

Nice job. Though it would be more useful to me as a cli app. A different take on tldr with live filtering of results based on what you're typing

shellsteady 1y ago
Thanks! A full CLI is on my list, but you can use Greppers as a terminal app today with fzf: # add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc gpr() { curl -fsSL https://www.greppers.com/data/commands.json | jq -r '.[] | [.title, .command, (.tags|join(","))] | @tsv' | fzf --with-nth=1,3 --delimiter='\t' \ --header='type to filter • Enter=copy' \ --preview='printf "⟪ %s ⟫\n\n%s\n" {1} {2}' \ --bind 'enter:execute-silent(echo -n {2} | (pbcopy || xclip -selection clipboard || wl-copy || xsel -ib || clip.exe))+accept' } # usage: run `gpr`, type to filter, Enter copies the command
rancar2 1y ago
You may be looking for do thing like this tool: https://github.com/closedloop-technologies/autocomplete-sh https://github.com/closedloop-technologies/autocomplete-sh

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

shellsteady 1y ago

[dead]

ProofHouse 1y ago

UX tip, reduce SIGNIFICANTLY or reposition the suggest a command box. At least on mobile the actual search results are way under it (which shouldn’t be), and it takes a ton of space for a rare use item

wingmanjd 1y ago

Neat resource! On FF Linux, when I click on a copy command (e.g. `Grep errors in syslog`, the clipboard only contains "grep ", including those two spaces.

shellsteady 1y ago
Thanks for the heads-up. I pushed a fix so the Copy button pulls from the data model (not DOM) and added a clipboard fallback for stricter browsers. Can you try a hard refresh and see if it still truncates? If it still reproduces for them, we’ll grab their FF version and distro, but this should squash the “grep ” symptom.

kiitos 1y ago

is this not just `tldr`? https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr

shellsteady 1y ago
Great pointer—love tldr. Greppers is a different slice: • Copy-first & tiny: one or two opinionated incantations with sensible flags, not an exhaustive page. • Instant search & links: live filtering, ?q= deep links, favorites (local), and keyboard nav; easy to share a specific query. • Curation over coverage: mixes cross-tool “recipes” (e.g., lsof + networking, systemd log views) rather than a page per command. • Safety: “dangerous” commands prompt before copying. They’re complementary: tldr is a great reference with multiple examples per command; Greppers is for the 2–3 commands you re-google at 1am with the exact flags you want to copy. If there’s a command where the tldr example is clearly better, I’ll happily mirror it or link out.
- kiitos 1y ago
  huh? there is no concept of any single "default incantation" of any command -- every command always has multiple "incantations" depending on what you want to do with it nobody would ever directly copy and execute any "exact flags" for any command based on a query string, surely this is not what you are suggesting? I can get on board with a tool that's like tldr but broader-scoped, returning sets of commands that you could choose to run based on input query, but isn't this just claude?
  - anon7000 1y ago
    That’s exactly what this is though, it’s giving you the precise “incantation” you need based on what you’re trying to do. Like “list 20 biggest files in current directory”
    - kiitos 1y ago
      huh? "list 20 biggest files in the current directory" is a search query, or a llm prompt input, it's not any kind of precise incantation.. ? I mean if greppers is just translating queries like that to related command-calls, that's fine but bizarre and nothing that would require a community-contribution-based database of mappings, that's just a search engine and/or llm mapping problem...

coxmi 1y ago

rsync needs some love on this. The most memorable args for me are `-mrchivas`, because together they sound somewhat like a name (“Mister Chivas”) (I drop the -a depending on whether archive is needed, Mr. Chivs sounds fun too)

shellsteady 1y ago
Great comment, and it’s a nice on-ramp to add rsync properly. Paste-ready reply for HN Good call. I just added a handful of rsync recipes: • rsync -avh --progress SRC/ DEST/ (archive, human sizes, progress) • rsync -azP -e ssh SRC/ user@host:/path/ (SSH, compress, resume) • rsync -avh --delete SRC/ DEST/ (mirror with delete — ) • rsync -avh --checksum SRC/ DEST/ (checksum verify; slower) • rsync -avh --exclude='.git' --exclude='node_modules' SRC/ DEST/ (exclude patterns) • rsync -azP --bwlimit=2m -e ssh … (bandwidth limit) • bonus mnemonic: rsync -mrchivas … → m prune-empty, r recursive, c checksum, h human, i itemize, v verbose, a archive, s safe (note: -a already implies -r, and -c slows it down) If there’s a specific rsync you reach for, drop it and I’ll add it too.
- foreslion 1y ago
  You left the LLM response in the second paragraph.

henrebotha 1y ago

Please move the "Help grow the community!" banner below the search results. I thought all my searches were coming up blank. On mobile, that banner takes up an enormous amount of space.

shellsteady 1y ago
Good call. I moved the “Help grow the community!” banner below the results and collapsed it on mobile so it doesn’t crowd search. Thanks for the heads-up—refresh and it should feel a lot cleaner.

wangbang 1y ago

Would focus more development on ensuring a responsive front end. On mobile, the website is quite difficult to navigate due to overlapping elements. Such as the search bar.

defrost 1y ago

> better real-world examples Simon Sheppard's CLI Command notes and forums* - https://ss64.com/ https://ss64.com/ * Now regrettably read-only thanks to the UK safety Act: https://ss64.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=587 https://ss64.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=587

shellsteady 1y ago
SS64 is excellent—encyclopedic and battle-tested. Greppers is intentionally “copy-first”: a few opinionated, ready-to-paste incantations with flags I actually use at 1am, plus instant search and linkable queries. I’m adding lightweight “More info” links on each card (SS64, man7, tldr) so folks can jump from the quick copy to the deep docs. If you’ve got specific SS64 pages you consider must-reads for certain commands, drop them and I’ll wire those in first.

mxuribe 1y ago

This is very neat! One small nit: Recipes and Favorites seems to not work (at all)...on firefox 142.0.1 nor ungoogled chromium version 139.0.7258.154 - both via fedora 41. ;-)

pluc 1y ago

I like command line fu: https://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse https://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse

sharts 1y ago

This is cool. I wonder if there is any kind of tool out there that might provide some fuzzy auto-suggestions in shell from a variety of sources like this.