Rura is a terminal UI for building shell pipelines. Edit a pipe like grep | sort | uniq, see output update live, inspect any stage, and diff between runs — replacing the usual edit, up-arrow, rerun loop.

Features

• Partial Pipeline Execution: Execute only up to the current subcommand to debug complex pipes.
• Live Execution Modes: Real-time feedback as you type, with optional "Live Until Cursor" or "Live Full" modes.
• Diff Mode: Line-based diff between two outputs, with a selectable base (stdin or any subcommand's output).
• Presets: Save frequently used commands as named presets with optional single-key shortcuts.
• Context-aware Completion: Tab-complete commands and file paths using your system's bash, zsh, or fish tools.
• Command Caching: Automatically caches output of subcommands to speed up iteration.
• Customizable: Fully configurable key bindings, themes, and UI placement via TOML.
• Vim Mode: Full Vim-style keybindings for command editing (optional).

More features

• Syntax & Error Highlighting: Visual feedback for subcommand boundaries, quotes, and pipes, plus highlighting of failed subcommands.
• Custom Shell Support: Specify which shell to use for command execution and completions (supports sh, bash, zsh, fish on Unix and powershell on Windows).
• Search: Search and highlight text within the output pane with regex support.
• Command Formatting: Automatically format your command pipeline.
• Subcommand Editing: Quick copy, cut, and paste of subcommands.
• Progress Indicator: Visual indicator for long-running commands.
• Persistent History: Quickly access and reuse previous commands.
• Save to File: Save current output or command to a file.
• Line Wrapping: Toggle whether long output lines wrap to fit the view.
• Line Numbers: Toggle line numbers in the output pane.
• Output Follow: Automatically scroll to the end of output as new data arrives from stdin.

Demos

Live Execution

Diff Mode

Command and filename completion

More demos

Configurable layout

History

Search with regex support

Line wrapping

Installation

Check the Releases page for pre-compiled binaries for your platform.

Homebrew (macOS/Linux):

brew install rura

Arch Linux (AUR): Install via your AUR helper:

# Pre-compiled binary
yay -S rura-bin

# Build from latest git source
yay -S rura-git

Debian/Ubuntu: Download the .deb package from the Releases page and install it with:

sudo dpkg -i rura_<version>_<arch>.deb

Fedora/RHEL: Download the .rpm package from the Releases page and install it with:

sudo rpm -ivh rura_<version>_<arch>.rpm

NixOS:

nix-shell -p rura

For other Nix-based installation methods and options, see search.nixos.org.

Cargo:

# From crates.io
cargo install rura

# From source
cargo install --git https://github.com/tlipinski/rura

Usage

You can start Rura by passing a file as an argument, piping data into it, or providing an initial command.

# Open a file
rura --file data.json

# Pipe data into rura
cat logs.txt | rura

# Start with an initial command
rura --command "grep error | sort"

# Print the last executed command from history without opening the UI
rura --last

CLI Arguments

Key Bindings

Command Execution

Navigation & View

Search

Live Execution Modes

Diff

Command Input & Subcommands

Note: If you enable Vim Mode, standard Vim keybindings are supported for command editing. It starts in Insert mode by default. Press Esc to enter Normal mode.

Presets

In the presets panel (select mode):

When editing a preset:

Saving to File

In the save popup, type a destination path (Tab completes paths) and press Enter to write. Existing files are not overwritten.

Stdin

General

Note for Linux users: Due to how the X11/Wayland clipboard works, the clipboard content might be lost when Rura exits if you don't have a clipboard manager running. If you experience this, we recommend using a clipboard manager.

Configuration

Rura can be configured via a TOML file. The shell used by Rura is determined by (in order of priority):

1. The --shell (or -s) CLI argument.
2. The shell property in the configuration file.
3. The SHELL environment variable.
4. Default to sh.

The configuration path is determined as follows:

1. Path specified by the --config (or -C) CLI argument.
2. Path specified by the RURA_CONFIG environment variable.
3. Default path:
   • Linux: ~/.config/rura/config.toml
   • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/rura/config.toml
   • Windows: %APPDATA%\rura\config.toml

General Options

Customizing Key Bindings

You can override any default key binding in the [keybindings] section. Multiple keys can be assigned to the same action.

[keybindings]
quit = ["ctrl+q", "ctrl+c"]
execute_full = ["enter"]
complete = ["tab"]
complete_prev = ["shift+tab"]
subcommand_next = ["alt+right"]

Customizing Theme

Colors and styles can be adjusted in the [theme] section. Supported colors include red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, gray, black, white, and hex codes (e.g., "#ffffff").

Available theme keys:

[theme.cmd_highlight]
fg = "black"
bg = "yellow"
bold = true

[theme.line_nums]
fg = "magenta"

Storage & Logs

History

Rura maintains a persistent command history. The history file is located at:

• Linux: ~/.local/share/rura/history.txt
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/rura/history.txt
• Windows: %APPDATA%\rura\history.txt

Search History

Search queries are persisted across sessions. The search history file is located at:

• Linux: ~/.local/share/rura/search_history.txt
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/rura/search_history.txt
• Windows: %APPDATA%\rura\search_history.txt

Presets

Presets are saved commands stored in a TOML file:

• Linux: ~/.local/share/rura/presets.toml
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/rura/presets.toml
• Windows: %APPDATA%\rura\presets.toml

Logs

Application logs are useful for troubleshooting. They are stored at:

• Linux: ~/.cache/rura/logs.txt
• macOS: ~/Library/Caches/rura/logs.txt
• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\rura\logs.txt

License

Licensed under the MIT License.