unix-tools

name	unix-tools
description	Reference for preferred UNIX tools over LLM processing. Use when processing JSON, text, searching files, or doing batch operations.

UNIX Tool Preferences

Prefer UNIX tools over LLM processing. Use the right tool for the task.

JSON

Tool	Use For	Example
jq	Query, filter, transform JSON	jq '.load_priority' mod.json

Text Processing

Tool	Use For	Example
awk	Columnar data, calculations, conditional logic	awk -F: '{print $1}' file
sed	Stream editing, find/replace, extract line ranges	sed -n '10,20p' file
cut	Extract fields/columns by delimiter	cut -d',' -f2 file.csv
sort	Sort lines (use before uniq)	sort -n numbers.txt
uniq	Deduplicate adjacent lines	sort file | uniq -c
tr	Translate/delete characters	tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'
head/tail	First/last N lines of file	head -20 file
rev	Reverse strings	echo "hello" | rev

Search & Batch

Tool	Use For	Example
find	Locate files by name, type, date, size	find . -name "*.gd" -mtime -1
xargs	Pipe output as arguments to another command	find . -name "*.gd" | xargs wc -l

Count & Compare

Tool	Use For	Example
wc	Count lines (-l), words (-w), chars (-c)	wc -l *.gd
diff	Show differences between files	diff old.gd new.gd
comm	Compare sorted files (unique to each, common)	comm -23 file1 file2

Paths

Tool	Use For	Example
basename	Extract filename from path	basename /path/to/file.gd
dirname	Extract directory from path	dirname /path/to/file.gd
realpath	Resolve to absolute path	realpath ../relative/path

File Info

Tool	Use For	Example
stat	File metadata (size, timestamps, permissions)	stat file.gd
file	Detect file type by content	file mystery_file
tree	Visualize directory structure	tree -L 2 core/
du	Disk usage by directory	du -sh mods/*

Data Generation

Tool	Use For	Example
seq	Generate number sequences	seq 1 10
shuf	Random selection/shuffle lines	shuf -n 5 names.txt
bc	Arbitrary precision calculator	echo "scale=2; 22/7" | bc
date	Format dates, convert timestamps	date +%Y-%m-%d

Checksums & Encoding

Tool	Use For	Example
md5sum/sha256sum	Compute/verify hashes	sha256sum file.zip
base64	Encode/decode base64	base64 -d encoded.txt
xxd	Hex dump for binary inspection	xxd binary_file | head

Key Principle

Use UNIX tools for data processing, not LLM token consumption. These tools are faster, deterministic, and won't hallucinate results.