rust commander (rc)

rust commander is an in-progress Rust TUI file manager inspired by GNU Midnight Commander. I'm already using it as a daily driver and, even after 20 years of using mc, I find it improves over the original in multiple ways:

• faster startup
• async operations
• better keybindings due to the removal of immediate shell
• Quick CD is really quick (keybinding: /)

The goal is to provide mc-inspired behavior and keymaps, with a modern internal architecture that keeps the UI responsive while long operations run, without requiring a strict 1:1 reimplementation of every mc subsystem.

Current status

This repository is actively developed with AI assistance but human oversight and already usable for core workflows.

Implemented milestones:

• Milestone 0: workspace skeleton, app loop, tracing, CLI
• Milestone 1: dual panels, navigation, sorting, tagging, dialogs
• Milestone 2: copy/move/mkdir/delete with background jobs, progress, overwrite policies, and cancellation
• Milestone 3: read-only viewer with search, goto, wrap, syntax highlighting
• Milestone 4: complete find workflow, directory tree, labeled hotlist, external/find panelize, Quick CD, mouse interaction, and core Left/Right panel controls
• Settings overhaul (partial): mc-shaped Options menu, typed settings model, Save setup persistence
• External editor workflow: deterministic resolution, terminal suspend/resume, command templates
• Product direction update: external-editor-first workflow, command-based diff output, optional FTP/SFTP support
• Deliberate shell-key policy: there is no always-live shell input, so file-manager keys remain available; / opens Quick CD and > is reserved for a future explicit shell-command prompt

Recent Milestone 4 and reliability progress:

• Find compiles glob or regular-expression matchers once per search, supports optional whole-word content matching and ignored directories, streams stable selections, and reports truncation and bounded read errors distinctly from cancellation or failure.
• Tree scanning is iterative, cancellation-aware, request-correlated, sorted in preorder, and indexed for parent/child/subtree operations. Static/dynamic navigation, incremental search, rescan/forget, and file operations are complete.
• Hotlist entries persist editable labels and paths with legacy migration, duplicate/path validation, optional deletion confirmation, and Ctrl-X H quick-add.
• External panelize uses named presets, bounded adaptive streaming, exact-job cancellation, and per-panel result history; find results use the same virtual-panel layer.
• Quick CD supports quoted relative/absolute paths, ~, Unix ~user, and per-panel cd - history. Arbitrary case-insensitive substrings search directories from the current directory, home, and filesystem root in a bounded, cancelable background scan; ranked results stream into an arrow-selectable list.
• Find results, tree, hotlist, and panelize preset lists support click selection and double-click activation from a renderer-shared hit-test layout.
• Left/Right menus provide targeted File listing, Quick view, Info, Tree, Panelize, and Rescan actions; persisted Full/Brief/Long formats, complete sort fields, and glob/regex filters are independent for each panel.
• Quick view uses cancelable request-correlated background reads. Listing filters preserve hidden tags and selection where possible, and reuse cached panelized results instead of rerunning a command.
• Tagged selection totals use cancelable background traversal and include complete directory contents, while overlapping trees are counted once and unreadable entries are reported as a partial total.

The remaining inactive Left/Right entries are explicitly later work: user-defined listing formats in Milestone 5, FTP/SFTP in Milestone 8, Shell links in Milestone 9, and lossless legacy filename transcoding in Milestone 10.

Planned next major milestones include mc.ext.ini, user menu, command-based diff integration (difftastic/diff), optional remote VFS, and subshell integration. See doc/roadmap.md.

Installation

Requirements:

• Rust 1.88.0 or newer
• A terminal with ANSI support

Install Rust Commander from crates.io:

cargo install rust-commander --locked

Then launch it with:

rc

The package is named rust-commander; the installed executable is intentionally named rc.

To build and run from a local checkout instead:

cargo run -p rust-commander --locked

Optional arguments:

rc --path /some/start/dir --tick-rate-ms 200

Select an mc skin:

rc --skin modarin256
rc --skin julia256 --skin-dir /path/to/mc/skins

rc embeds its bundled original skins in the binary and also discovers custom and system skins in locations such as /usr/share/mc/skins and Homebrew paths.

Settings and setup

• Options menu now follows MC categories: Configuration, Layout, Panel options, Confirmation, Appearance, Display bits, Learn keys, Virtual FS, and Save setup.

• Settings are loaded with deterministic precedence: built-in defaults -> persisted config -> environment overrides -> CLI flags.

• Save setup persists to:

  • ~/.config/rc/settings.ini for rc-owned settings.
  • ~/.config/mc/ini for MC-compatible skin key.

• Skin discovery uses ordered search roots: custom configured dirs, then bundled/system MC skin directories.

Key controls (current defaults)

Main file manager:

• Tab: switch active panel
• Enter / F3: open directory or open file in viewer
• F4: edit file using editor_command, $EDITOR, $VISUAL, or PATH probes (hx, nvim, vim, vi, emacs)
• Space / Insert / Ctrl-T: toggle selected item
• Backspace: go to parent directory
• / or Alt-C: Quick CD; enter an exact path (~, Unix ~user, relative, absolute, or - for previous) or any substring, then choose ranked matches with Up/Down
• >: reserved for a future explicit shell-command prompt; rc has no always-live shell input
• F2: reserved for the MC-compatible user menu coming in Milestone 5
• F5 copy, F6 rename/move, F7 mkdir, F8 delete
• Ctrl-J: open jobs screen
• Alt-J: cancel latest/selected job
• Alt-F, M-?, Ctrl-/: open find dialog
• Alt-T: open tree
• Alt-H: open hotlist
• Alt-P / Ctrl-P or Ctrl-X then !: open external panelize
• F9: open menus; Left/Right configure either panel's view, format, sort, and filter
• Ctrl-X i / Ctrl-X q: show Info / Quick view in the passive panel
• Alt-Shift-T: cycle Full, Brief, and Long formats on the active panel
• Left / Right: move across responsive columns in Brief format
• Shift-F6 / Shift-F8: cycle sort field / toggle reverse order
• q / Esc: quit

Milestone 4 screens:

• Find results: F4 search again, F5 panelize, F6 pause/continue, Alt-J cancel the exact search.
• Tree: arrows navigate, F2 rescan, F3 forget subtree, F4 static/dynamic mode, F5/F6/F7/F8 copy/move/mkdir/delete.
• Hotlist: a add, e/F4 edit, d/Delete remove, Enter open.
• Panelize presets: Tab custom command, F2 add, F4 edit, F8 remove, Enter run. The side-panel Panelize menu entry restores that panel's latest results.
• Mouse: click a result/list entry to select it; double-click to open or run it.

Viewer:

• F7 / Ctrl-S: search
• Shift-F7: search backward
• n / Shift-n: continue search forward/backward
• g / Alt-L: goto
• w: toggle wrap
• h: toggle hex/text mode
• Esc / q / F10: close viewer

Notes:

• Default bindings are loaded from crates/core/assets/mc.default.keymap.
• Common macOS Option-symbol variants are normalized for keymap matching.

Project layout

• crates/app (rust-commander): terminal app entrypoint, event loop, input normalization
• crates/core (rust-commander-core): domain model, commands, routes, operations, jobs
• crates/ui (rust-commander-ui): ratatui rendering and bundled skin support
• crates/shell (rust-commander-shell): cancelable process backend primitives
• doc/roadmap.md: feature plan and milestone breakdown
• doc/architecture/: bounded contexts, crate contracts, ownership map
• doc/adr/: architecture decision records

Development

Runtime tracing is written to ~/.config/rc/rc.log instead of the terminal so diagnostics cannot corrupt the alternate-screen UI. Set RC_LOG_FILE to use a different path and RUST_LOG to change the default warn filter. Logs at or above 8 MiB are reset on the next startup.

Run baseline checks locally:

cargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets --all-features --locked -- -D warnings
cargo test --workspace --all-targets --all-features --locked

Additional local equivalents of CI policy/perf checks (requires extra cargo tools):

cargo +1.88.0 check --workspace --all-targets --locked
cargo nextest run --workspace --all-targets --all-features --locked
./scripts/validate_rust_advisory_waivers.sh
cargo deny check bans licenses sources
./scripts/run_cargo_deny.sh \
  --manifest-path Cargo.toml --all-features --locked \
  check --config deny.toml advisories
./scripts/verify_release_packages.sh
cargo +nightly udeps --workspace --all-targets --all-features --locked
mkdir -p target/coverage
cargo llvm-cov --workspace --all-targets --all-features --locked --json --output-path target/coverage/llvm-cov.json
./scripts/coverage_trend.sh target/coverage/llvm-cov.json .github/coverage-baseline.json

CI runs all required gates on pushes and pull requests via:

• .github/workflows/ci.yml
• .github/workflows/rust-security.yml, which also runs weekly against the latest RustSec advisory database

License

GPL-3.0-or-later, as this project is derived from the original midnight commander. See LICENSE for the complete terms.