My favourite zsh/bash shortcuts (functions and aliases)

Introduction My zsh profile is over 1000 lines at this point. A lot of that is functions I asked AI to generate for me, since it's fast, portable, and saves me a ton of typing. Here's the thing though: the shortcuts that save me the most time aren't the clever ones. They're the dumb ones. Things like clone instead of git clone && cd , or dir instead of mkdir -p && cd . Each one only saves a second or two, but I run them so often that it adds up fast. These are in no particular order, just the ones I reach for constantly. Git aliases for common commands A few one-liners I have set up as plain aliases: alias gcp = "git cherry-pick" alias git-append = "git commit --amend --no-edit -a" gcp is self-explanatory. git-append amends the last commit with your currently staged (and unstaged, thanks to -a ) changes without touching the commit message. Great for fixing up a commit you just made before you push. Create a branch or switch to it if it already exists One of my most-used functions. Normally you have to remember whether a branch exists before deciding between git checkout <branch> and git checkout -b <branch> . This just does the right thing either way: gb () { if git rev-parse --verify --quiet " $1 " > /dev/null ; then git checkout " $1 " else git checkout -b " $1 " fi } Nuke all local changes to reset the working tree When an experiment goes sideways or I just want to throw everything away and start clean, I run nah : nah () { git reset --hard git clean -df if [ -d ".git/rebase-apply" ] || [ -d ".git/rebase-merge" ] ; then git rebase --abort fi } This resets tracked changes, removes untracked files and directories. No confirmation prompt, so use it carefully. Print recent commits as ready-to-paste cherry-pick commands Useful when you need to cherry-pick a batch of commits from one branch onto another in order: logs () { if [[ -z " $1 " || " $1 " = ~ [ ^0-9] ]] ; then echo "Usage: logs <number_of_commits>" return 1 fi git log -n " $1 " --reverse --pretty = format: "g