Making `tbdflow` Your Own

I’ve received some great feedback since launching tbdflow: while the tool is powerful, the commands can be long to type, and it’s another set of flags to remember. This is a great point, the goal of any good CLI is to reduce friction, not add to it.

While tbdflow provides powerful workflows, you shouldn’t have to type them out in full every time. Let’s look at two ways to make tbdflow feel like a natural extension of your shell: aliases and shell completion.

The Quick Fix: Shell Aliases

Aliases are simple shortcuts for your shell. You can create short, memorable commands that expand to longer tbdflow commands. This is a great way to make the tool your own.

I used to have a gpc (“git pull commit”) alias myself, and it’s what inspired tbdflow in the first place!

How to Set Up Aliases

Add the following lines to your shell’s configuration file (e.g. ~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc, or ~/.config/fish/config.fish).

For bash or zsh:

# A short alias for the commit command
alias tfc='tbdflow commit'

# An even shorter alias for a common commit type
alias tff='tbdflow commit -t feat -m'

# A quick way to sync up
alias tfs='tbdflow sync'

# And a shortcut for completing a feature branch
alias tfcomp='tbdflow complete -t feature -n'

For fish:

# A short alias for the commit command
alias tfc 'tbdflow commit'

# An even shorter alias for a common commit type
alias tff 'tbdflow commit -t feat -m'

# A quick way to sync up
alias tfs 'tbdflow sync'

# And a shortcut for completing a feature branch
alias tfcomp 'tbdflow complete -t feature -n'

After adding these and restarting your shell, you can now run commands like:

tff "Add new login button"
tfcomp "new-dashboard-widget"

The Pro Move: Shell Completion

Aliases are great, but what if you can’t remember the exact flag you need? That’s where shell completion comes in. It allows you to use the <Tab> key to have your shell automatically suggest and complete commands, flags, and arguments for you.

tbdflow has a built-in command to generate the necessary script for your shell. I used the clap_complete crate to implement this functionality and it was actually very straightforward.

How to Set Up Shell Completion

You only need to do this once. Add the line for your shell to its configuration file.

For Zsh (~/.zshrc):

eval "$(tbdflow generate-completion zsh)"

For Bash (~/.bashrc):

eval "$(tbdflow generate-completion bash)"

For Fish (~/.config/fish/config.fish):

tbdflow generate-completion fish | source

After restarting your shell, your command line will come alive. You can now type tbdflow com<Tab> and it will expand to tbdflow commit. Type tbdflow commit --<Tab> and it will show you all the available flags like --type, --scope, and --breaking.

This is the perfect way to make tbdflow fast and easy to use and helping you stay in flow.