Starship, blazing fast cross shell prompt

Introduction

The de-facto standard prompt tool for web developers seems to be Oh My Zsh which is all well and good. It’s a powerful tool with a gazillion ways to customise and enhance your CLI experience. However, for me at least I require less whizz and more robust, simple means to display the info I need and no more.

What I need in a shell prompt tool

I work with Git on a pretty much daily basis. It’s therefore a no brainer that I’d like to be able to see what branch I’m on and what state it’s in.

I also like to keep an eye on which version of PHP I currently have configured. Add in the ability to configure user info and where you are in the directory tree and that’s about it. KISS – “Keep It Simple Sweetheart.”

Move over Oh My Zsh, here’s Starship…

If your needs, like mine, are simple you may be interested in looking at Starship as it’s fast, dependable and you can configure it to your hearts content. It’s available in just about any shell you can imagine too.

Example starship.toml file

[cmd_duration]
disabled = true

[directory]
truncation_symbol = "…/"

[nodejs]
disabled = true

[package]
disabled = true

[php]
format = "PHP: [$version](147 bold) "

[rust]
disabled = true

Final thoughts

The example configuration above is enough for me but there’s lots more you can do with Starship by following their online manual. I’ve never had an issue using it or running updates with my preferred install process, Homebrew (for Mac & Linux.)

brew install starship

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About Dave A.K.A. 'barrd'

Dave is a Bristol based Scottish Expat who has 20+ years experience of web development. Loves playing guitar, reading books, watching Sci-Fi and tinkering with tech.

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