Install a friendly terminal shell

If you’re unfamiliar with a terminal command line or tired of using bash, you’ll benefit from installing another shell. There are a number of options, but the fish shell is the simplest to install and use. Simple doesn’t mean basic - it’s elegant and wonderful.

Install Fish

First, install fish. On MacOs the command is:

brew install fish

ℹ️

For an exhaustive install manual, see this cookbook.

Jorge's cookbook

You’re done! Just type fish into your terminal and it’ll switch over. If you want your terminal to start with fish by default, run this:

chsh -s /usr/local/bin/fish

Customization

Unlike any other shell, fish has a web interface to customize. Run fish_config and view the awesomeness!

I have a couple recommended plugins, so lets install a package manager to make this simple.

curl -sL https://git.io/fisher | source && fisher install jorgebucaran/fisher

The prompt isn’t terrible, but I prefer minimalism. For that, you’ll want the hydro prompt:

fisher install jorgebucaran/hydro

My most common error when typing a command is to miss a closing parenthesis or quote. Never again with:

fisher install jorgebucaran/autopair.fish