My fish shell

After many years on an ever-growing zsh configuration, I switched to fish a few years ago.

While perfectly satisfied with my setup, I wanted something I could recommend to a beginner. fish's simplicity and modern defaults seem like a much better starting point if eschewing POSIX compatibility.

My configuration hasn't grown much since, but a few quality of life improvements have accumulated, so I figured it is worth sharing.

Installs on Apple Silicon macOS

Let's assume you're starting from scratch and want to adopt all my suggestions. Open Terminal.app and run the following:

$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
$ /opt/homebrew/bin/brew install aria2 bat delta direnv eza fish fzf keychain mise tig wezterm zoxide
$ chsh -s /opt/homebrew/bin/fish

~/.wezterm.lua

Most likely, you'll need to choose another font on line 3.

Unless, of course, you're interested in purchasing PragmataPro, a most excellent project I use nearly everywhere (eg my main site).

local wezterm = require 'wezterm'
local config = wezterm.config_builder()
config.font = wezterm.font 'PragmataPro Liga'
config.font_size = 14
config.hide_tab_bar_if_only_one_tab = true
config.native_macos_fullscreen_mode = true
config.pane_focus_follows_mouse = true
config.use_fancy_tab_bar = false
config.window_decorations = 'RESIZE'
config.window_padding = { left = 0, right = 0, top = 0, bottom = 0 }
return config

~/.config/fish/config.fish

I made it so it could be copied anywhere; none of the tools need to be installed, but they will be enabled if they are.

if type -q /opt/homebrew/bin/brew; /opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv       | source; end
if type -q keychain;               keychain --eval --quiet --inherit any | source; end
if type -q direnv;                 direnv hook fish                      | source; end
if type -q fzf;                    fzf --fish                            | source; end
if type -q zoxide;                 zoxide init fish                      | source; end
if type -q mise;                   mise activate fish                    | source; end
if type -q caniuse;                caniuse --completion-fish             | source; end

1. The first line enables Homebrew on Apple Silicon macOS.
2. keychain starts SSH and GPG agents as needed.
3. direnv automatically sets up environments per project.
4. fzf is a fuzzy finder that can be used to search for files and commands.
5. zoxide speeds up file system navigation. I barely cd anymore.
6. mise manages versioned toolchains per project.
7. caniuse is caniuse.com for the command line.

We've reached the right step to switch from Terminal.app and zsh to WezTerm and fish. Close Terminal.app and start WezTerm before we move along.

Install node and caniuse through mise

> mise use -g node@latest
> npm install -g @bramus/caniuse-cli

~/.config/fish/functions/

All my functions worth sharing are saved aliases, so I provide commands to recreate them.

c.fish, g.fish

clear the shell, invoke git in one character.

> alias --save c clear
> alias --save g 'command git'

cat.fish

Replace cat with bat. Use /bin/cat when you need the real thing.

> alias --save cat bat

dl.fish

Download files with aria2.

> alias --save dl 'aria2c -x5 -j5'

ls.fish

Use eza instead of ls.

> alias --save ls 'eza --color=always --icons=always --long --git'

Leverage eza and bat in fzf

> set -U FZF_ALT_C_OPTS  "--preview 'eza --tree --color=always {}'"
> set -U FZF_CTRL_T_OPTS "--preview 'bat -n --color=always --line-range :500 {}'"

Get rid of the greeting

I don't need to be welcomed and invited to type help every time.

> set -U fish_greeting

~/.ssh/config extracts

I like my keys to be added to the agent automatically on first use, for host keys to be automatically accepted for new hosts, and to minimize bandwidth consumption.

AddKeysToAgent yes
Compression yes
StrictHostKeyChecking accept-new

~/.gitconfig extracts

With this configuration in place, git help config should open a page in your browser. I won't describe every detail, but a few essentials.

Only including 2 aliases, ss and sss, as everyone should know how status offers a compact output with -s and -b, and is sped up by -uno to avoid looking at the working tree in large repositories.

You should try tig for a quick view of your repository's history. lazygit does a lot more.

You can and should sign your commits with ssh (unless you prefer PGP).

[core]
	autocrlf = false
	whitespace = blank-at-eol,blank-at-eof
	pager = delta
[gc]
	auto = 0
[user]
	signingKey = ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
[fetch]
	prune = true
[push]
	default = current
[rerere]
	enabled = true
	autoUpdate = true
[color]
	ui = true
[branch]
	autosetuprebase = always
[log]
	date = iso
[rebase]
	autosquash = true
	autostash = true
[alias]
	cm = commit -v
	ss = status -sbuno
	sss = status -sb
[tag]
	sort = version:refname
[tig]
	show-changes = true
	commit-order = topo
	line-graphics = utf-8
	mouse = true
	blame-options = -C -C -C
[difftool]
	prompt = false
[mergetool]
	prompt = false
[commit]
	gpgsign = true
[pull]
	rebase = true
[init]
	defaultBranch = main
[help]
	format = web
[gpg]
	format = ssh
[submodule]
	recurse = true
[interactive]
	diffFilter = delta --color-only
[delta]
	navigate = true
	side-by-side = true
[merge]
	conflictstyle = diff3
[diff]
	colorMoved = default