Terminal first

Planted 02025-07-08

This is an active WIP.

A terminal-first approach makes it simple to 1) make custom workflows/GUIs, and 2) have AI agents interact with the data.

With local LLMs and command line utilities for AI agents, I am rethinking how I want to interface with data.

1. Local data in spite of the cloud
2. CLI-first interaction
3. Flexible GUIs

Archive directory

Archive is everything. The data in archive powers applications, custom AI agents, and more.

• apps/
• archive/
  • .dotfiles/
    • config/ Config files for dotfiles
    • cli/ command line utilities for archive
  • bookmarks/ Offline link archive
  • contacts/
    • people/
  • calendar/
  • mail/
  • music/
  • ledger/ Double-entry accounting
  • notes/
  • rss/
  • scrapbooks/
  • pictures/
  • videos/
  • txt/
    • now.md
    • todo.md
    • links.md
    • wtl.md
    • futurebound.md
    • til.md
  • writing/

Principles

• Pipeable. Being able to pipe output into another tool is important.
• Minimal. Only does what I actually do, not what I might do.
• Context: Searchable, filterable.
• Reproducible: Spinning up a new mac should be easy.
• Offline: usable offline.

Consequences

• Pipeable: CLI-first interfaces. GUI optional.
• Minimal: choose the lighter tool.
• Context: indexed with search engine features.
• Reproducible: keychain/1Password
• Offline: sync

Data tools

• Offline: rclone, git, syncthing
• Email: mbsync, notmuch
• RSS: (WIP) newsboat? rsstail? custom?
• Web browser: lynx, Browsh
• Music: cmus
• Accounting: ledger

Interaction tools

• Media player: MPV
• LLM: Ollama, opencode
• opencode CLI
• claude code CLI

Email workflow

I have a read heavy email workflow.

• isync (mbsync): sync mail locally
• notmuch: enhanced search capabilities

Workflow

1. Pull latest emails
2. Show latest unread
3. Commands: mark read and show next unread, move to prev

notmuch search tag:unread

notmuch show <thread_id>

For sending

• msmtp: send outgoing emails via SMTP
• aerc: terminal email client interface