I’ve always admired people who live almost entirely on their keyboard. I was the first in my circle to master Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V 😎. Add Ctrl-X and Ctrl-A, and I felt like a keyboard ninja. 😄
It was a long time ago and I did add some more hot keys in my arsenal, but even when I started coding, I didn’t really live on the keyboard. I still don’t, fully.
But my wishes were heard. I was reading a paragraph in a book “Data analyst tools: command line”, and the author began the paragraph with:
“Okay, let’s do it just using the keyboard.”
And I thought: Yeah! Let’s do it!
Why the keyboard matters
The command line runs in a REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop):
- The program displays an input prompt (for example,
C:\Users\alinaaleks>), indicating it’s ready to execute commands. - You type a command with any parameters and hit Enter.
- The program runs the command, shows the results, and displays a new prompt.
If you’re doing something hundreds of times, repeating actions across multiple computers, or automating tasks every few minutes — it’s a terrible waste of human time to rely on a mouse.
Scripts: your best friend
Instead of clicking around, you can write a series of commands in a text file — a script — and let the computer repeat them.
Your scripts can control:
- Programs and commands installed on your system
- Files and folders
- Settings
- Browser, word processor, spreadsheets
- Databases
- …pretty much anything you can type a command for
Writing commands in text is clear, precise, and repeatable.
Handy Windows shortcuts
- Win + type app name → Enter — open any app
- Alt + Tab — switch between windows quickly
- Win + E — open File Explorer
- Ctrl + L — in File Explorer, focus the path bar
- Ctrl + E — in File Explorer, search
Git Bash essentials
- Tab — autocomplete files, folders, and commands
- ↑ / ↓ arrows — scroll through previous commands
- Ctrl + R — search command history (my favorite!)
- Ctrl + A / Ctrl + E — jump to the start/end of the line
- Ctrl + L — clear screen
- clear — also clears the screen
- Ctrl + W — delete the previous word
- Alt + D — delete the next word
- Ctrl + U — clear the entire line
- Ctrl + C — cancel a running command
Pro tip: Aliases
Ohh, I love this one. Creating shortcuts for most-used Git commands:
git config --global alias.s "status -sb"
git config --global alias.a "add ."
git config --global alias.c "commit -m"
git config --global alias.p "push"
git config --global alias.lg "log --oneline --graph --decorate"
See all your aliases: git config --global --get-regexp alias.
So now, I just type git s, git c (only adding a message after), git lg and how great it feels.
