🚀 Full Product Demo
Welcome to the ultimate guide for snip. This document will walk you through everything from your
first snippet to advanced shell integration.
1. Installation & Setup
Get snip running on your machine in seconds.
# Install globally npm install -g snip-manager # Set up the shell widget (for Ctrl+G magic) eval "$(snip widget)"
2. Core Workflow: Capture, Find, Run
📥 Capture: Saving snippets
# Interactive add (opens $EDITOR) snip add my_script --lang js --tags node,util # Pipe directly echo "curl -X POST http://api.local/dev" | snip add quick_post
🔍 Find: Listing your collection
# List all snippets snip list # Filter by tag or sort by most used snip list --tag node --sort usage
🏃 Run: Instant execution
snip run quick_post
3. Advanced Features
🎚️ Parameters (Templates)
Use {{name}} or {{name:default}} in your snippets. snip will
interactively prompt you for values when running.
docker run --rm -it {{image:ubuntu:24.04}} {{cmd:bash}}
🔗 Grab: Import from the Web
snip grab github:user/repo/scripts/backup.sh --name backup
⚡ Smart Search (fzf)
snip fzf
⚡ Zero-Friction Exec
Skip the preview modal when you know what you're running:
# Run immediately snip exec deploy-api # Dry run — just print what would execute snip exec deploy-api --dry-run # Skip dangerous-command warning snip exec deploy-api --force
🏷️ Shell Aliases
Turn every snippet into a native shell command:
# Generate aliases for bash/zsh eval "$(snip alias)" # Now every snippet is a command: deploy-api # → snip exec deploy-api docker-cleanup # → snip exec docker-cleanup
🩺 Health Check
Verify your setup in one command:
snip doctor ✓ Storage: JSON (42 snippets) ✓ Editor: code --wait ✓ Shell: /bin/zsh ✓ fzf: installed ✗ Gist sync: not configured
4. UI/UX & Safety
snip automatically detects dangerous commands like rm -rf. If a snippet is risky, it will
demand an explicit "yes" confirmation.
🎨 Beautiful Terminal UI
Launch a full-screen interactive view of your library with snip ui. Features syntax
highlighting, line numbers, incremental search, and undo delete.
⌨️ Shell Widget (Ctrl+G)
Press Ctrl+G anytime in your terminal to fuzzy-search and insert snippets directly into your
prompt.
5. Snippet Management
# Duplicate a snippet snip cp deploy deploy-staging # Rename a snippet snip mv old-name new-name # Print raw content for piping snip cat deploy | sh # Show recently used snippets snip recent snip recent 10
6. Pipe-Friendly Output
# JSON output for scripting snip show deploy --json | jq .tags snip search docker --json | jq '.[].name' snip list --json | jq length # Raw output (no headers) snip show deploy --raw | pbcopy
7. Maintenance
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
snip config |
View and edit settings |
snip export |
Backup library to JSON |
snip show --edit |
Quickly edit an existing snippet |
snip stats |
See your productivity data |
snip doctor |
Verify your setup — storage, editor, fzf, gist |
snip cp / mv |
Duplicate or rename snippets |
snip alias |
Generate shell aliases for every snippet |
For large libraries, enable SQLite in your config for blazing-fast performance:
snip config set useSqlite true