shell-script-style

name	shell-script-style
description	Enforce personal shell scripting conventions when writing or editing bash scripts. Use when creating, modifying, or reviewing shell scripts (.sh, bash scripts in PATH, or any file with bash shebang).

Shell Script Style

Personal bash scripting conventions and best practices.

Shebang and set

Always start bash scripts with:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

Use #!/usr/bin/env sh with set -eu only when POSIX compatibility is explicitly required. Never use hardcoded paths like #!/bin/bash.

Naming

• Files: lowercase, no extension, hyphens for compound names (e.g. git-cmt-20, clean-pkg-deps).
• Global variables and constants: UPPER_SNAKE_CASE (e.g. INPUT_FILE, WORK_DIR, LOG_DIR).
• Function locals and parameters: lower_snake_case (e.g. filepath, output_file). Always declare with local.
• Private/helper functions: leading underscore prefix (e.g. _edit, _help, _msg1).

Output and logging

Use printf instead of echo -e. Define colored logging functions:

msg()  { printf "\033[32m==> %s %s ~ \033[0m%s\n" "$(date +%H:%M:%S)" "$*" ; }
warn() { printf "\033[33m==> %s %s ~ %s\033[0m\n" "$(date +%H:%M:%S)" "$*" ; }
error(){ printf "\033[31m==> %s %s ~ %s\033[0m\n" "$(date +%H:%M:%S)" "$*" ; }
die()  { error "$@"; exit 1; }

Arrow hierarchy: ==> primary, -> secondary, => tertiary. Use >&2 for error/warning output.

Conditionals

Prefer [[ ]] over [ ]:

# Good
if [[ -z $1 || $1 == help ]]; then

# Avoid
if [ -z "$1" ] || [ "$1" = "help" ]; then

Never use x prefix hack for empty checks:

# Bad
[ x = "x$VAR" ]

# Good
[[ -z $VAR ]]

Argument parsing

Use manual while + shift + case pattern:

while [[ $# -gt 0 ]]; do
    case "$1" in
        -i) INPUT_FILE="$2"; shift ;;
        -v) VERBOSE=true ;;
        -h|--help) show_help; exit 0 ;;
        *) ARGS+=("$1") ;;
    esac
    shift
done

For thin wrapper scripts, pass through with "$@".

Functions

• Declare before use, always.
• Use local for all function-scoped variables.
• Use export -f when passing functions to subshells or fzf.
• For dispatch-style scripts, put all logic in functions and call a main dispatch at the bottom.

Error handling

• Check dependencies with command -v, never which.
• Use die() for fatal errors.
• Use || true to suppress expected failures.
• Check exit codes explicitly when set -e doesn't cover the case.

Quoting and variables

• Quote all variable expansions: "$var", "${var}", "${array[@]}".
• Prefer $() over backticks.
• Use $(<file) instead of cat file for reading file contents.

Avoid

Avoid	Use instead
cat file | awk	awk ... file or awk ... < file
which cmd	command -v cmd
echo -e	printf
[ x = "x$VAR" ]	[[ -z $VAR ]]
Unquoted $var	"$var"
Missing local	local var=...
set -e alone	set -euo pipefail

Formatting

• 4 spaces for indentation.
• Backslash \ for line continuation on long commands.
• Heredoc with <<-EOF to allow indentation.
• Blank lines to separate logical sections.
• No trailing semicolons on regular lines.