Productive Terminal Setup: Kitty, Ranger, and Aliases that Actually Help

A well-configured terminal saves you hundreds of micro-frictions per week. But be careful: productivity is not filling with plugins, it is reducing repetitive steps.

Guided practical case

Goal: lower the average time of repetitive tasks (git + docker + file browsing) by one week.

Plan:

1. measure more repeated commands,
2. create 8-10 high impact aliases,
3. validate actual use for 7 days,
4. remove dead aliases.

Recommended minimum stack

• Kitty for performance and visual clarity.
• Ranger for quick file navigation.
• Aliases for frequent commands.

Aliases with real impact

alias gs='git status -sb'
alias gp='git pull --rebase'
alias dc='docker compose'
alias ll='ls -lah'

Bootstrap script in TypeScript (optional)

If you want to keep versioned aliases in repo:

import { appendFileSync } from "node:fs";

const aliases = [
  "alias gs='git status -sb'",
  "alias gp='git pull --rebase'",
  "alias dc='docker compose'",
  "alias ll='ls -lah'",
];

appendFileSync(process.env.HOME + "/.bash_aliases", `\n# team aliases\n${aliases.join("\n")}\n`);
console.log("Aliases updated");

Start with 5-10 aliases maximum. If you don’t memorize them in 2 weeks, they are left over.

Practical rule

Each tooling setting must respond:

1. What friction does it eliminate?
2. How much time does it save?
3. What complexity does it add?

If you can’t answer those 3, don’t add new tooling.