You can tell a good admin not by what they know, but by what they no longer do manually. These 20 tools either replace a dusty standard tool, fill a gap, or are just so good you'll wonder why they aren't preinstalled.

20 CLI tools

Search & Text

1. ripgrep (rg)

Replaces: grep. rg 'pattern' --type py.

2. fd

Replaces: find.

3. bat

Replaces: cat. Syntax highlighting.

4. delta

Replaces: git diff. git diff | delta.

Data & APIs

5. jq

Replaces: grep | awk on JSON.

6. miller (mlr)

CSV/JSON. mlr --csv filter '$status=="error"' server.log.

7. httpie (http)

Replaces: curl. http POST api.example/users name=Klaus.

8. xh

httpie in Rust.

Terminal Workflow

9. fzf

Fuzzy finder. Ctrl+R, vim $(fzf).

10. tmux

Sessions survive disconnects.

11. zoxide (z)

Smarter cd. z bitcalc.

12. tldr

Practical examples. tldr tar.

Monitoring & System

13. bottom (btm)

Graphical CPU/GPU monitor. btm.

14. duf

Disk usage. duf.

15. procs

Process tree. procs --tree.

16. ncdu

Interactive dir browser. ncdu /var/log.

Containers & DevOps

17. lazydocker

Docker TUI.

18. k9s

K8s TUI.

Misc

19. entr

File watcher. ls *.py | entr -c pytest.

20. pastel

Color conversion. pastel format hex 1E3A5F.

Install all: apt install ripgrep fd-find bat jq miller httpie fzf tmux tldr ncdu entr