aka

aka is a simple, single-file-executable command-line tool which lets you define per directory config files as aliases for shell commands.

Motivation

Being an avid user of Linux' alias command, oftentimes I found myself frustrated with a couple of "more advanced" use-cases and wanted a really simple tool which would:

• be able to use namespaced (nested) aliases;
• be able to define configuration files in directories which would serve as per-directory-context aliases;
• be able to list all aliases within the current directory's context;
• use simple format for configuration files (as close as possible to alias syntax);
• integrate nicely with version control (e.g. add configuration file to the VCS to be shared among team members).

Features

• define both simple and nested aliases
• list defined aliases (aka -l or aka --list)
• recursively seek for .aka config file in parent directories

Usage

---

Overview

Using aka is quite straightforward:

• create an .aka text file in a directory where you'd like to be able to use aka aliases;
• define your aliases;
• run aka [your_alias] to execute your aliases;
• run aka -l or aka --list to list all available aliases

Configuration File

Configuration files are actually Lua files which means we're using:

• lua strings for regular / simple aliases;
• lua tables for namespaced / nested aliases;
• -- for single line and [[]] for multiple line comments.

Here is an example of a configuration file to get started with:

-- regular aliases
pwd_alias = 'pwd' -- usage: aka pwd_alias
du_alias = 'du -h' -- usage: aka du_alias

-- nested aliases
alias_group = {
  alias_subgroup = {
    list = 'ls -alh' -- usage: aka alias_group alias_subgroup list
  }
}

A more practical example could be:

-- example project's docker containers management commands
docker = {
  bash = {
    django = 'docker exec -i -t $(docker ps -f name=django --format "{{.Names}}") /bin/bash',
    postgres = 'docker exec -i -t $(docker ps -f name=postgres --format "{{.Names}}") /bin/bash'
  },
  build = {
    django = 'docker-compose -f local.yml up --build django',
    postgres = 'docker-compose -f local.yml up --build postgres',
    all = 'docker-compose -f local.yml up --build'
  }
}

In the example above we'd be able to use namespaced aliases like this:

• aka docker bash django or;
• aka docker bash postgres or;
• aka docker build all
• etc.

Command Line Interface

aka - per directory shell aliases

Usage:
  aka alias [sub_alias sub_sub_alias ...]
  aka -l|--list
  aka -h|--help

Options:
  -l, --list        List all aliases
  -h, --help        Print usage

Installation

Use Pre-compiled Binary

Overview

The goal from the start was for this tool to be easily distributable across Linux machines (not having to have Lua on your system to be able to use aka).

With this in mind and the fact that Lua is small, pre-compiled x86_64 linux binaries are available for download which contain the entire LuaJIT compiler and aka source code.

Download

https://github.com/bonidjukic/aka/releases/latest

Using LuaRocks To Install

To install aka using luarocks package manager, run this command in your terminal:

luarocks install aka

If you don't have LuaRocks installed, this document can guide you through the process.

Building From Source

Prerequisites

Building aka from source is possible, but at the moment, luastatic command line tool is a prerequisite for the build process.

luastatic is used to build a standalone executable from a Lua source code.

Building

To build aka run:

make or make build

Installing

To install aka run:

make install

Uninstalling

To uninstall aka run:

make uninstall

Testing

Prerequisites

Busted unit testing framework is required to run the tests.

Running The Tests

Navigate to aka project's root directory and run:

busted

Roadmap

There are a couple of features I'm planning to add in the near future:

• [✔] ability to execute aka from children directories as well (currently it's only possible to execute aka from the same directory where the config file is located);
• [✔] ability to pass arguments to aliases (this is not possible ATM);
• [...] ability to define .aka.local config file which could be used to override aliases from .aka config (useful when .aka is added to VCS and you'd like to have a different local version of a certain alias);
• [...] ability to autocomplete aka aliases using bash completions.

Nomenclature

If it's not obvious, aka was named after the acronym of the Also known as adverb, i.e. a.k.a which is a synonym of alias and also has a nice side effect of being very short to type.

Versioning

SemVer is used for versioning. For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

Changelog

The format is based on Keep a Changelog — please see the CHANGELOG.md for a detailed list of changes.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 - see the LICENSE.md file for details.