Oh-my-zsh!

Every coder uses the terminal in some way or another. But let's be honest — the default terminal looks and feels like it's stuck in the 90s. Enter Oh My Zsh.

What is Zsh?

Zsh (Z shell) is a Unix shell built on top of bash with additional features. Oh My Zsh is a framework for managing your Zsh configuration, making it easy to customize themes and add powerful plugins.

Installation

Mac

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Linux

sudo apt install zsh
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Essential Plugins

Three plugins that immediately level up your terminal:

zsh-autosuggestions

Suggests commands as you type based on your history.

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

zsh-history-substring-search

Search through your command history with partial matches.

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-history-substring-search ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-history-substring-search

zsh-syntax-highlighting

Colors your commands as you type — green for valid, red for errors.

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting

Configuration

Edit your ~/.zshrc file and add the plugins:

plugins=(git zsh-autosuggestions zsh-history-substring-search zsh-syntax-highlighting)

Then reload:

source ~/.zshrc

That's it. Your terminal just got a serious upgrade.