Configuration Tips

My focus here is on ZSH and Oh My Zsh, but similar configurations can also be applied to Bash or other shells. If you're considering transitioning from Bash to ZSH or want to experiment with the examples provided, refer to this article.

To begin optimizing your saved command history, you can adjust your configuration as follows:

# ~/.zshrc

# ...

HISTFILE="$HOME/.zsh_history"

HISTSIZE=10000000

SAVEHIST=10000000

HISTORY_IGNORE="(ls|cd|pwd|exit|cd)*"

This configuration allows for an extensive command history while excluding common commands like ls and cd from being stored. You can modify the HISTORY_IGNORE variable to fit your preferences.

To further enhance your ZSH setup, consider adding these options:

# ~/.zshrc

setopt EXTENDED_HISTORY # Store history as ':start:elapsed;command'.

setopt INC_APPEND_HISTORY # Write to history file immediately.

setopt SHARE_HISTORY # Share history across sessions.

setopt HIST_IGNORE_DUPS # Avoid recording duplicate events.

setopt HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS # Replace old events with duplicates.

setopt HIST_IGNORE_SPACE # Exclude commands starting with space.

setopt HIST_SAVE_NO_DUPS # Skip writing duplicate events.

setopt HIST_VERIFY # Delay execution upon history expansion.

setopt APPEND_HISTORY # Append to history file (default behavior).

setopt HIST_NO_STORE # Prevent storing certain commands.

setopt HIST_REDUCE_BLANKS # Eliminate extra spaces in commands.

These options help streamline your command history, making it easier to search and retrieve commands. Notably, the HIST_IGNORE_SPACE option can be particularly useful for keeping sensitive information out of your history. By prefixing commands with a space, you can ensure they remain hidden.

Next, let's discuss how to enhance the search and presentation of your history.

To enable fuzzy searching, which allows for more flexible command retrieval, add the following plugin:

# ~/.zshrc

# ...

plugins=(git fzf)

With this setup, you can utilize FZF for searching your history. However, for larger history files, performance may lag since FZF relies on the find command. To mitigate this, you can install ag:

sudo apt-get install silversearcher-ag

Then, add this line to your .zshrc:

export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='ag --hidden -g ""'

Additionally, you can format the timestamps of your history entries. By default, history displays like this:

10206 echo hello

10207 head some-file.txt

10208 curl google.com

10209 cat some-file.txt

To include timestamps, add:

HIST_STAMPS="yyyy-mm-dd"

Now, your history will appear as:

10206 2024-03-30 12:29 echo hello

10207 2024-03-30 12:51 head some-file.txt

10208 2024-03-30 13:21 curl google.com

10209 2024-03-30 14:15 cat some-file.txt

Searching Your History

With configurations in place, you can now effectively search your command history. The simplest method is to use the history command, but to avoid clutter, you can limit the output:

history -E -10

Or use:

history -i

For editing the last command, use:

fc -E -l -10

You can also utilize the r command to re-execute the last command or the last command containing a specific string.

For quick access, pressing CTRL+R provides an interactive search through your history, enhanced by FZF if set up correctly. If this feature doesn’t work, verify your keybindings:

bindkey | grep fzf-history-widget

You can also create custom keybindings for classic search modes:

# Add to ~/.zshrc

bindkey "^E" history-incremental-search-backward # CTRL+E

bindkey "^S" history-incremental-search-forward # CTRL+S

For more variations, consult the documentation.

Enhancing with Syntax Highlighting

For an improved search experience, consider installing zsh-syntax-highlighting:

sudo apt-get install zsh-syntax-highlighting

Then add this line to your .zshrc:

echo "source /usr/share/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh" >> ${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.zshrc

Synchronization of History

To access your shell history on different machines, you can use the ZSH history-sync plugin, which employs Git for synchronization. Alternatively, explore Atuin, a modern solution that utilizes SQLite for storage and offers ZSH support—visit their website for more details.