Show HN: blaze-keys for zsh – run commands faster via leader-key combos

1 point

5 months ago

As someone who uses the terminal heavily, I try to optimise every keystroke. While I still use awesome plugins like 'fzf' and 'zsh-autosuggestions', they don't completely optimise the number of keystrokes required to run common commands. So I created 'blaze-keys' ('blz').

(Teaser demo: https://asciinema.org/a/767061)

'blz' has two main functionalities:

1. Leader-keys are a hotkey that you trigger in order to open a tree of possible commands. You can see the list of available options and the first unambiguous selection will be executed/expanded. Once your muscle memory kicks in, this makes you incredibly fast at running commands.

2. 'blz' also functions as a hotkey manager, making it easier to set up your keybinds in one place. But additionally, it automatically reassigns your hotkeys as you move between directories, so you can keep the same "build" hotkey across different project types.

In leader-key mode, you don't even need to use the Enter key to run commands: you choose when invoking it whether you want 'exec' mode or 'abbr' mode. This makes it feel like a very direct interface between the mind and the terminal.

There is a full demo linked on the GitHub page. Currently 'blz' only supports Zsh, but it should be relatively easy to expand support to other shells like Fish in the future.