jesh

jesh — Modern Unix Shell in Rust

jesh is an interactive shell and scripting engine written in Rust, blending POSIX/Bash compatibility with smart features from Fish, Zsh, and Nushell.

Quick Start

# Cargo
cargo install jesh

# Build from source
git clone https://github.com/jefferson-it/jesh
cd jesh
cargo build --release
./target/release/jesh

Features

Shell & Scripting

• POSIX-compatible parser: pipes, redirects, heredocs, process substitution <(cmd)
• Arithmetic expansion $((expr)), brace expansion {1..10}, ANSI-C quoting $'...'
• Extended globbing (extglob) + Zsh-style qualifiers
• Bash fallback — delegates .bashrc scripts to bash
• Flow control: if/else/case/while/until/for
• declare/typeset with -i/-a/-A/-r/-x, local, readonly, getopts
• set -e/-u/-x/-o pipefail

40+ Builtins

cd, pwd, exit, echo, export, unset, alias, unalias, source, ., history, type, which, pushd, popd, dirs, read, printf, eval, exec, command, true, false, :, test, [, [[, declare, typeset, local, readonly, getopts, disown, set, shopt, complete, jobs, fg, bg, kill, jeofetch

Smart History

• JSONL persistence with metadata (timestamp, directory, exit code, frequency)
• Cross-session sync via incremental seek
• history pin/unpin for favorite commands
• Directory-aware ranking
• $HISTSIZE/$HISTFILESIZE/$HISTIGNORE/$HISTCONTROL

Autosuggestions & Completion

• Fish-style suggestions ranked by frequency + recency + directory (<5ms)
• TUI menu selection with fuzzy search (/u/l/b → /usr/local/bin)
• Programmable via complete -W/-F
• Command and flag descriptions

Prompt

• RPROMPT (right prompt) with exit status, git branch, SSH
• Transient prompt — simplifies previous lines after execution
• Async rendering — git fetch in background
• Theme system via $THEME (Dracula, Dark, custom)
• Nerd Fonts, OSC 7, OSC 133 support

Line Editing

• Emacs & Vi mode with block/bar cursor
• Multi-line editing, syntax highlighting, bracket matching
• Smart paste (escapes meta-characters)
• Yank ring (Alt+Y after Ctrl+Y)
• Configurable keybindings

Job Control

• Background &, fg, bg, jobs, disown
• Ctrl+Z/Ctrl+C/Ctrl+D
• Process group isolation (PGID)
• Async job termination notifications

Terminal Protocols

• Kitty Graphics Protocol — inline images
• OSC 8 hyperlinks — clickable links
• OSC 7 directory notifications
• East Asian Width — correct cursor for CJK/emoji

Integrations

• zoxide — smart z navigation
• eza/exa replaces ls, bat replaces cat
• Semantic pipeline engine (Nushell-style structured data)

Configuration

Create ~/.jeshrc:

INIT_INFO=true
THEME="jesh-dracula"
alias ll="eza -la"
alias gs="git status"

Compatibility

System	Status
Linux	Native
macOS	Native
Windows	Native (not just WSL)
FreeBSD	Compilable

Performance

• Startup < 30ms
• History suggestions < 5ms
• Lazy loading, PATH/autocomplete/git caching

License

MIT

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for build, test, and style guidelines.

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