reubeno/brush

🐚bash/POSIX-compatible shell implemented in Rust 🦀

2,210

stars

1,105

commits

Rust

primary language

Sep 10, 2026

updated

brush.sh

bash

posix-shell

rust

script

shell

README

brush (Bo(u)rn(e) RUsty SHell) is a modern bash- and POSIX- compatible shell written in Rust. Run your existing scripts and .bashrc unchanged -- with syntax highlighting and auto-suggestions built in.

At a glance

✅ Your existing .bashrc just works—aliases, functions, completions, all of it.
✨ Syntax highlighting and auto-suggestions built in.
🧪 Validated against bash with ~1700 compatibility tests.
🧩 Easily embeddable in your Rust apps using brush_core::Shell.

⚠️ Not everything works yet: select and some edge cases aren't supported. See the Compatibility Reference for details.

Quick start:

$ cargo binstall brush-shell         # using cargo-binstall
$ brew install brush                 # using Homebrew
$ pacman -S brush                    # Arch Linux
$ cargo install --locked brush-shell # Build from sources

brush is ready for use as a daily driver. We test every change against bash to keep it that way.

More detailed installation instructions are available below.

✨ Features

🐚 `bash` Compatibility

	Feature	Description
✅	50+ builtins	`echo`, `declare`, `read`, `complete`, `trap`, `ulimit`, ...
✅	Full expansions	brace, parameter, arithmetic, command/process substitution, globs, `extglob`, `globstar`
✅	Control flow	`if`/`for`/`while`/`until`/`case`, `&&`/`\|\|`, subshells, pipelines, etc.
✅	Redirection	here docs, here strings, fd duplication, process substitution redirects
✅	Arrays & variables	indexed/associative arrays, dynamic variables, standard well-known variables, etc.
✅	Programmable completion	Works with bash-completion out of the box
✅	Job control	background jobs, suspend/resume, `fg`/`bg`/`jobs`
🔷	Traps & options	`DEBUG`/`ERR`/`EXIT` traps work; signal traps and options in progress

⌨️ User Experience

	Feature	Description
✅	Syntax highlighting	Real-time as you type (reedline)
✅	Auto-suggestions	History-based hints as you type (reedline)
✅	Rich prompts	`PS1`/`PROMPT_COMMAND`, right prompts, starship compatible
✅	TOML config	`~/.config/brush/config.toml` for persistent settings
🧪	Extras	`fzf`/`atuin` support, zsh-style `precmd`/`preexec` hooks (experimental), VS Code terminal integration

Installation

When you run brush, it should look exactly as bash does on your system: it processes your .bashrc and other standard configuration. If you'd like to distinguish the look of brush from the other shells on your system, you may author a ~/.brushrc file.

🍺 Installing using Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

Homebrew users can install using the brush formula:

brew install brush

Installing on Arch Linux

Arch Linux users can install brush from the official extra repository:

pacman -S brush

Installing on MSYS2

MSYS2 users can install brush from the repository:

pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-brush # or mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-brush or mingw-w64-clang-aarch64-brush

🚀 Installing prebuilt binaries via `cargo binstall`

You may use cargo binstall to install pre-built brush binaries. Once you've installed cargo-binstall you can run:

cargo binstall brush-shell

🚀 Installing prebuilt binaries from GitHub

We publish prebuilt binaries of brush for Linux (x86_64, aarch64) and macOS (aarch64) to GitHub for official releases. You can manually download and extract the brush binary from one of the archives published there, or otherwise use the GitHub CLI to download it, e.g.:

gh release download --repo reubeno/brush --pattern "brush-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.*"

After downloading the archive for your platform, you may verify its authenticity using the GitHub CLI, e.g.:

gh attestation verify brush-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz --repo reubeno/brush

🐧 Installing using Nix

If you are a Nix user, you can use the registered version:

nix run 'github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-unstable#brush' -- --version

📦 Installing on Fedora (community package)

brush isn't packaged in Fedora's official repositories, but a community-maintained brush-shell package is available from Terra, a separately maintained, third-party repository for Fedora and its derivatives.

Once you've enabled the Terra repository:

dnf install brush-shell

🔨 Building from sources

To build from sources, first install a working (and recent) rust toolchain; we recommend installing it via rustup. Then run:

cargo install --locked brush-shell

Community & Contributing

This project started out of curiosity and a desire to learn—we're keeping that attitude. If something doesn't work the way you'd expect, let us know!

Discord server — chat with the community
Building from source — development workflow
Contribution guidelines — how to submit changes
Technical docs — architecture and reference

Other POSIX-ish shells implemented in non-C/C++ languages:

nushell — modern Rust shell (provides reedline)
fish — user-friendly shell (Rust port in 4.0)
Oils — bash-compatible with new Oil language
mvdan/sh — Go implementation
rusty_bash — another Rust bash-like shell

🙏 Credits

This project relies on many excellent OSS crates:

reedline — readline-like input and interactive features
clap — command-line parsing
fancy-regex — regex support
tokio — async runtime
nix — Unix/POSIX APIs
criterion.rs — benchmarking
bash-completion — completion test suite

Licensed under the MIT license.

Contributors

(top 30 of 37)

800 commits

166 commits

54 commits

28 commits

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reubeno/brush

🐚bash/POSIX-compatible shell implemented in Rust 🦀

2,210

stars

1,105

commits

Rust

primary language

Sep 10, 2026

updated

brush.sh

bash

posix-shell

rust

script

shell

README

At a glance

⚠️ Not everything works yet: select and some edge cases aren't supported. See the Compatibility Reference for details.

Quick start:

$ cargo binstall brush-shell         # using cargo-binstall
$ brew install brush                 # using Homebrew
$ pacman -S brush                    # Arch Linux
$ cargo install --locked brush-shell # Build from sources

brush is ready for use as a daily driver. We test every change against bash to keep it that way.

More detailed installation instructions are available below.

✨ Features

🐚 `bash` Compatibility

	Feature	Description
✅	50+ builtins	`echo`, `declare`, `read`, `complete`, `trap`, `ulimit`, ...
✅	Full expansions	brace, parameter, arithmetic, command/process substitution, globs, `extglob`, `globstar`
✅	Control flow	`if`/`for`/`while`/`until`/`case`, `&&`/`\|\|`, subshells, pipelines, etc.
✅	Redirection	here docs, here strings, fd duplication, process substitution redirects
✅	Arrays & variables	indexed/associative arrays, dynamic variables, standard well-known variables, etc.
✅	Programmable completion	Works with bash-completion out of the box
✅	Job control	background jobs, suspend/resume, `fg`/`bg`/`jobs`
🔷	Traps & options	`DEBUG`/`ERR`/`EXIT` traps work; signal traps and options in progress

⌨️ User Experience

	Feature	Description
✅	Syntax highlighting	Real-time as you type (reedline)
✅	Auto-suggestions	History-based hints as you type (reedline)
✅	Rich prompts	`PS1`/`PROMPT_COMMAND`, right prompts, starship compatible
✅	TOML config	`~/.config/brush/config.toml` for persistent settings
🧪	Extras	`fzf`/`atuin` support, zsh-style `precmd`/`preexec` hooks (experimental), VS Code terminal integration

Installation

🍺 Installing using Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

Homebrew users can install using the brush formula:

brew install brush

Installing on Arch Linux

Arch Linux users can install brush from the official extra repository:

pacman -S brush

Installing on MSYS2

MSYS2 users can install brush from the repository:

pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-brush # or mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-brush or mingw-w64-clang-aarch64-brush

🚀 Installing prebuilt binaries via `cargo binstall`

You may use cargo binstall to install pre-built brush binaries. Once you've installed cargo-binstall you can run:

cargo binstall brush-shell

🚀 Installing prebuilt binaries from GitHub

gh release download --repo reubeno/brush --pattern "brush-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.*"

After downloading the archive for your platform, you may verify its authenticity using the GitHub CLI, e.g.:

gh attestation verify brush-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz --repo reubeno/brush

🐧 Installing using Nix

If you are a Nix user, you can use the registered version:

nix run 'github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-unstable#brush' -- --version

📦 Installing on Fedora (community package)

Once you've enabled the Terra repository:

dnf install brush-shell

🔨 Building from sources

To build from sources, first install a working (and recent) rust toolchain; we recommend installing it via rustup. Then run:

cargo install --locked brush-shell

Community & Contributing

This project started out of curiosity and a desire to learn—we're keeping that attitude. If something doesn't work the way you'd expect, let us know!

Discord server — chat with the community
Building from source — development workflow
Contribution guidelines — how to submit changes
Technical docs — architecture and reference

Other POSIX-ish shells implemented in non-C/C++ languages:

nushell — modern Rust shell (provides reedline)
fish — user-friendly shell (Rust port in 4.0)
Oils — bash-compatible with new Oil language
mvdan/sh — Go implementation
rusty_bash — another Rust bash-like shell

🙏 Credits

This project relies on many excellent OSS crates:

reedline — readline-like input and interactive features
clap — command-line parsing
fancy-regex — regex support
tokio — async runtime
nix — Unix/POSIX APIs
criterion.rs — benchmarking
bash-completion — completion test suite

Licensed under the MIT license.

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reubeno/brush

README

At a glance

Quick start:

✨ Features

🐚 bash Compatibility

⌨️ User Experience

Installation

Community & Contributing

Related Projects

Contributors

Similar repos

Languages

reubeno/brush

README

At a glance

Quick start:

✨ Features

🐚 bash Compatibility

⌨️ User Experience

Installation

Community & Contributing

Related Projects

Similar repos

Contributors

Languages

🐚 `bash` Compatibility

🐚 `bash` Compatibility