🔍 fzf

🔍 Interactive Log Search

Pipe log output through fzf for interactive filtering — far faster than grep when you're not sure exactly what you're looking for.

# Search today's syslog interactively
tail -1000 /var/log/messages | fzf

# Search journalctl output
journalctl -n 2000 | fzf

# Search with live preview of surrounding context
journalctl --no-pager | fzf --preview 'echo {}'

📁 File Navigation

Navigate large directory trees without remembering exact paths.

# Find and edit any config file under /etc
vim $(find /etc -name "*.conf" 2>/dev/null | fzf)

# Find and tail any log file
tail -f $(find /var/log -type f | fzf)

# Find any file in the web tree
vim $(find /var/www/html -name "*.html" | fzf)

⚙️ systemd Unit Management

Interactively select units to manage — no more tab-completing through hundreds of unit names.

# Interactively restart a service
systemctl restart $(systemctl list-units --type=service \
  --state=running | fzf | awk '{print $1}')

# Check status of any unit
systemctl status $(systemctl list-units \
  | fzf | awk '{print $1}')

🌿 Git Workflow

Navigate branches, commits, and stashes interactively.

# Checkout any branch interactively
git checkout $(git branch -a | fzf | tr -d ' ')

# Fuzzy search git log, preview diff
git log --oneline | fzf \
  --preview 'git show --stat $(echo {} | cut -d" " -f1)'

# Interactively add files to staging
git diff --name-only | fzf --multi \
  | xargs git add

🔑 SSH Host Selection

Keep a host list and fuzzy-select your SSH target — useful when managing dozens of servers.

# SSH to any host in known_hosts
ssh $(grep -oE '^[^, ]+' ~/.ssh/known_hosts \
  | sort -u | fzf)

# Or maintain a hosts file and fzf it
ssh $(cat ~/.my_hosts | fzf)

📜 Command History Power Search

Ctrl+R with fzf replaces the default bash reverse search with something dramatically better — full fuzzy matching across your entire history.

# After shell integration, just press:
# Ctrl+R — opens full history in fzf
# Type any fragment of the command you remember
# Enter to execute, Ctrl+E to edit first

This alone is worth installing fzf. If you've ever half-remembered a complex pipeline from three weeks ago, you know why.

🧵 Navigate fabric Pattern Output

When fabric generates summaries or reports, pipe them through fzf for interactive review.

# List and select from available fabric patterns
ls ~/.config/fabric/patterns | fzf \
  | xargs -I{} fabric --pattern {}

# Search through fabric output saved to files
ls ~/fabric-output/*.md | fzf \
  --preview 'cat {}'

🐚 Navigate sgpt Shell History

sgpt can maintain chat history. Use fzf to search previous AI interactions.

# Search sgpt chat history files
ls ~/.config/shell_gpt/chat_cache/ | fzf \
  --preview 'cat ~/.config/shell_gpt/chat_cache/{}'

📂 Navigate AI-Generated Documentation

When you've built up a library of AI-generated reference files (like Craig's Linux command library), fzf is the fastest way to get to the right file.

# Find any HTML doc in the LessonPlans tree
vim $(find /var/www/html/LessonPlans \
  -name "*.html" | fzf \
  --preview 'head -30 {}')