magical shell history

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Atuin replaces your existing shell history with a SQLite database, and records additional context for your commands. Additionally, it provides optional and fully encrypted synchronisation of your history between machines, via an Atuin server.

exit code, duration, time and command shown

As well as the search UI, it can do things like this:

# search for all successful `make` commands, recorded after 3pm yesterday
atuin search --exit 0 --after "yesterday 3pm" make

You may use either the server I host, or host your own! Or just don't use sync at all. As all history sync is encrypted, I couldn't access your data even if I wanted to. And I really don't want to.

Features

• rebind ctrl-r and up (configurable) to a full screen history search UI
• store shell history in a sqlite database
• backup and sync encrypted shell history
• the same history across terminals, across sessions, and across machines
• log exit code, cwd, hostname, session, command duration, etc
• calculate statistics such as "most used command"
• old history file is not replaced
• quick-jump to previous items with Alt-<num>
• switch filter modes via ctrl-r; search history just from the current session, directory, or globally

Documentation

• Quickstart
• Install
• Import
• Configuration
• Searching history
• Cloud history sync
• History stats
• Self host Atuin server
• Key binding
• Shell completions

Supported Shells

• zsh
• bash
• fish
• nushell

Community

Atuin has a community Discord, available here

Quickstart

With the default sync server

This will sign you up for the default sync server, hosted by me. Everything is end-to-end encrypted, so your secrets are safe!

Read more below for offline-only usage, or for hosting your own server.

bash <(curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ellie/atuin/main/install.sh)

atuin register -u <USERNAME> -e <EMAIL> -p <PASSWORD>
atuin import auto
atuin sync

Then restart your shell!

Opt-in to activity graph

Alongside the hosted Atuin server, there is also a service which generates activity graphs for your shell history! These are inspired by the GitHub graph.

For example, here is mine:

If you wish to get your own, after signing up for the sync server, run this

curl https://api.atuin.sh/enable -d $(cat ~/.local/share/atuin/session)

The response includes the URL to your graph. Feel free to share and/or embed this URL, the token is not a secret, and simply prevents user enumeration.

Offline only (no sync)

bash <(curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ellie/atuin/main/install.sh)
            
atuin import auto

Then restart your shell!

Install

Script (recommended)

The install script will help you through the setup, ensuring your shell is properly configured. It will also use one of the below methods, preferring the system package manager where possible (pacman, homebrew, etc etc).

# do not run this as root, root will be asked for if required
bash <(curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ellie/atuin/main/install.sh)

And then follow the shell setup

With cargo

It's best to use rustup to get setup with a Rust toolchain, then you can run:

cargo install atuin

And then follow the shell setup

Homebrew

brew install atuin

And then follow the shell setup

MacPorts

Atuin is also available in MacPorts

sudo port install atuin

And then follow the shell setup

Nix

This repository is a flake, and can be installed using nix profile:

nix profile install "github:ellie/atuin"

Atuin is also available in nixpkgs:

nix-env -f '<nixpkgs>' -iA atuin

And then follow the shell setup

Pacman

Atuin is available in the Arch Linux community repository:

pacman -S atuin

And then follow the shell setup

Termux

Atuin is available in the Termux package repository:

pkg install atuin

And then follow the shell setup

From source

git clone https://github.com/ellie/atuin.git
cd atuin
cargo install --path .

And then follow the shell setup

Shell plugin

Once the binary is installed, the shell plugin requires installing. If you use the install script, this should all be done for you! After installing, remember to restart your shell.

zsh

echo 'eval "$(atuin init zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc

Zinit

zinit load ellie/atuin

Antigen

antigen bundle ellie/atuin@main

bash

We need to setup some hooks, so first install bash-preexec:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rcaloras/bash-preexec/master/bash-preexec.sh -o ~/.bash-preexec.sh
echo '[[ -f ~/.bash-preexec.sh ]] && source ~/.bash-preexec.sh' >> ~/.bashrc

Then setup Atuin

echo 'eval "$(atuin init bash)"' >> ~/.bashrc

fish

Add

atuin init fish | source

to your is-interactive block in your ~/.config/fish/config.fish file

Fig

Install atuin shell plugin in zsh, bash, or fish with Fig in one click.

Nushell

Run in Nushell:

mkdir ~/.local/share/atuin/
atuin init nu | save ~/.local/share/atuin/init.nu

Add to config.nu:

source ~/.local/share/atuin/init.nu

...what's with the name?

Atuin is named after "The Great A'Tuin", a giant turtle from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of books.