My terminal setup that makes colleagues stop and ask "what is that?"
by Ali Hassan·May 21, 2026
Sharing my config because I've been asked enough times that this is faster.
Terminal emulator: Ghostty (fast, GPU-accelerated, has a proper config file)
Shell: Fish, auto-suggestions, syntax highlighting, and abbreviations out of the box without plugins
Prompt: Starship, shows git branch, language version, exit codes. Configured with a minimal theme
Core tools:
- `eza` instead of `ls` (icons, better formatting, git awareness)
- `bat` instead of `cat` (syntax highlighting, line numbers)
- `fd` instead of `find` (faster, saner syntax)
- `ripgrep` instead of `grep` (much faster, respects .gitignore)
- `zoxide` instead of `cd` (remembers your frequent directories)
- `fzf` for fuzzy finding everything
The key insight: Each of these tools does one job better than the Unix default. The combination feels like a different environment.