modern-cli-overrides
shalomb/agent-skills/skills/modern-cli-overrides/SKILL.md
Use this skill to upgrade and enforce the use of modern Rust/Go CLI equivalents over traditional POSIX coreutils. Trigger this whenever you are about to use grep, find, awk, or curl in a shell command. You MUST read this skill to learn the syntax for rg (ripgrep), fd, sg (ast-grep), jq, yq, and httpie, which are significantly faster, safer, and better suited for codebases. Must always apply!
- Sends data out
What's in it
- Modern CLI Overrides
- The Overrides
- 1. Use rg (ripgrep) instead of grep
- 2. Use fd instead of find
- 3. Use sg (ast-grep) for codebase-wide refactoring
- 4. Use jq instead of grep/awk for JSON
- 5. Use yq instead of grep/awk for YAML
- 6. Use httpie (http) instead of curl
- Syntax Reference
---
name: modern-cli-overrides
description: >
Use this skill to upgrade and enforce the use of modern Rust/Go CLI equivalents
over traditional POSIX coreutils. Trigger this whenever you are about to use
grep, find, awk, or curl in a shell command. You MUST read this skill to
learn the syntax for rg (ripgrep), fd, sg (ast-grep), jq, yq, and httpie, which
are significantly faster, safer, and better suited for codebases. Must always apply!
---
# Modern CLI Overrides
As an AI agent, you were likely trained heavily on traditional POSIX tools (`grep`, `find`, `sed`, `awk`, `ls`). However, modern development environments use faster, safer, and more intelligent alternatives.
**ABSOLUTE RULE: Do not use the traditional tools if a modern equivalent exists in this environment.**
## The Overrides
When generating shell commands or writing scripts, apply the following tool substitutions:
### 1. Use `rg` (ripgrep) instead of `grep`
* `rg` is drastically faster and respects `.gitignore` by default.
* **DO NOT USE:** `grep -r "pattern" .`
* **USE:** `rg "pattern"`
### 2. Use `fd` instead of `find`
* `fd` has a simpler syntax and respects `.gitignore`.
* **DO NOT USE:** `find . -name "*.py"`
* **USE:** `fd -e py`
### 3. Use `sg` (ast-grep) for codebase-wide refactoring
* Standard regex replacements (`sed`) are dangerous for code refactoring.
* For codebase-wide structural refactoring, use `sg` (ast-grep). See the `ast-grep` skill.
### 4. Use `jq` instead of `grep`/`awk` for JSON
* Never attempt to parse or extract values from JSON files using text-processing tools.
* **DO NOT USE:** `grep '"key":' file.json | awk '{print $2}'`
* **USE:** `jq '.key' file.json`
### 5. Use `yq` instead of `grep`/`awk` for YAML
* Never attempt to parse or extract values from YAML files using text-processing tools.
* **DO NOT USE:** `grep 'key:' file.yaml`
* **USE:** `yq '.key' file.yaml`
### 6. Use `httpie` (`http`) instead of `curl`
* `curl` syntax for JSON payloads is tedious and error-prone. `httpie` provides intuitive syntax, automatic JSON parsing, and avoids escaping hell.
* **DO NOT USE:** `curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"key":"value"}' api.com`
* **USE:** `http POST api.com key=value`
## Syntax Reference
For exact flag translations and advanced usage of these modern tools, refer to:
**[references/tool-mappings.md](references/tool-mappings.md)**
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