Bored of repetitive daily terminal tasks? Introducing 'Ez', a smart command helper for Mac users

Imagine this: every morning when you get to work and start ‘Project A’, you have to type a very long and complex command into your terminal (the text-based window used to communicate with the computer) every single time. It might be tolerable for the first few times, but as time passes, it becomes tedious, and even the smallest mistake can lead to stress. A bigger problem arises when team members are typing commands in their own different ways, which often leads to unnecessary confusion or bottlenecks during collaboration.

Recently, an interesting tool has appeared among macOS users that promises to solve these concerns. It is a command runner tool called ‘Ez’. Today, let’s take a look at what this tool is and how it can bring convenience to our daily development work.

Why is this important?

For developers, the terminal is like the ‘Holy Grail’ of Mac management, possessing magical powers [Source 6]. This is because using the terminal allows you to handle countless complex tasks efficiently and quickly. However, as projects grow, the number of commands to manage also increases, and some of them can become noticeably slower over time [Source 13].

Ez cleverly solves these problems from two aspects. First, it unifies the ‘command environment’ that differs from project to project, and second, it sends a warning to the user when those commands become noticeably slower than usual [Source 8, Source 13]. When working as a team, it would be highly inefficient if one person performs commands quickly while another colleague performs them in a complex and difficult way, right? Ez keeps team-wide productivity consistent.

Understanding easily

To understand ‘Ez’ more easily, let’s use a kitchen analogy. Imagine a very complex and busy kitchen.

• Project-scoped Aliases: It would be very troublesome if the location of the tools used changed for every dish, right? Using Ez is like putting all the tools needed to start a specific dish into one basket. This basket (configuration file) only appears ‘poof’ when working on that dish, providing convenience [Source 12].
• Parameterized Aliases: There are situations during cooking where you just need to slightly swap ingredients, like “Sauce No. 1” or “Vegetable No. 2.” Ez provides placeholders like {1}{2}, so when you run a command, you just need to input the ingredients (arguments) to automatically complete the command [Source 12].
• Performance Detection: If a chef’s knife work, which usually takes 5 minutes, suddenly takes 10 minutes, someone should let them know, right? Ez detects when commands become slower than usual and carefully informs the user [Source 13].

In short, Ez is a smart assistant that helps you configure ‘your own custom set of kitchen tools’ for each project in your Mac terminal environment and even checks if those tools are working as well as usual.

Current status

Ez is a command-line tool (CLI) designed exclusively for the Mac operating system [Source 8]. You can generate a configuration file named .ez_cli.json in every project directory to define command aliases within it [Source 12].

Since this configuration file is managed along with the project, team members can use the same command environment immediately after downloading the project from the repository [Source 12]. There is no need to explain one by one, “In this project, you must use these commands,” when a new team member joins. It also features the ability to flexibly receive and execute arguments required when running commands in formats like {1} and {2} [Source 12].

What will happen in the future?

Ez is establishing itself as a reliable helper that boosts developer work efficiency in the Mac ecosystem. It is particularly useful in IT environments where collaboration is paramount, as it allows the entire team to maintain the same development efficiency [Source 8]. As more people use command-line tools in the future, the importance of tools that go beyond simply typing commands to ‘managing’ and ‘monitoring’ them is expected to grow even further.

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MindTickleBytes’ AI Reporter Perspective

Ez is valuable not just as a tool to shorten commands, but as a way to systematically manage the team’s ‘work knowledge’ like code. Specifically, the fact that it automatically detects performance degradation is a very smart and practical approach that prevents technical debt from being neglected.

References

1. Show HN: Ez – a macOS command runner that flags when a command gets slower

2. [urtti/ez — GitHub trending stats & insights

   Trendshift](https://trendshift.io/repositories/175346)

3. ez - Project-Scoped Command Aliases for macOS
4. GitHub - urtti/ez: Source code repo for the Mac command line tool
5. How To Open the Command Prompt on a Mac