CLI Essentials | fzf

Fuzzy finding is a corner stone of digital productivity — and fzf brings it to the command line.

Interactive vs. Non-interactive Text Matchers

fzf is not grep

fzf - interactive matcher, let's takes your input dynamically and let's you select - conceptually it is more of a picker

"find . -type f" | fzf

grep - non-interactive matcher, outputs a list of filtered results based on your input - conceptually it is more of a filter

dotnet build | grep "Error"

Interactive Matchers

you type live, they update

fzf, skim, peco, fzy, selecta

great for choosing results

Non-interactive Matchers

you type, they print results once

grep, rg, ag, ack

great for finding occurrences

What can fzf do for us?

Example: choose line from text file

items.txt

apple
banana
cherry
date
elderberry

then read as input like so

fzf < items.txt

or pipe the file into fzf like so

cat items.txt | fzf

Quick refresher: < vs. |

When I try fzf < find . -type f it tells me "zsh: no such file or directory: find".

This is because in order for < to work, we need some static text ready to be read into stdin while find . -type f just gives us console output.

use | for console output and < for files

Practical Application

In most cases you will store a pick from your fzf results into a variable for further processing like so

choice=$(cat items.txt | fzf)
echo "You picked: $choice"

Configuring fzf

fzf can be configured via inline flags like so

fzf --color=bg+:#000000,bg:#181825,fg:#f00fff,hl:#f38ba8 --reverse

or permanently inside your ~/.zshrc by setting the FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS environment variable

# ~/.zshrc

export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS="--color=bg+:#000000,bg:#181825,fg:#f00fff,hl:#f38ba8 --reverse"

Layout and UI

Option	Description
--height 40%	Makes the window take 40% of the terminal height
--reverse	Shows the prompt at the top instead of bottom

Behavior and matching

Option	Description
--multi	Allow selecting multiple items (use Tab to mark)
--exact	Disable fuzzy, match exactly

find the full list of options on the fzf github page

What's Next?

• In Neovim we combine fuzzy finding with search context (buffers, LSP symbols, etc.)
• Outside of Neovim the most common use case is to create workflows by using fzf in your shell scripts, see tmux-sessionizer as an example