Lightweight workspace manager for the shell.

Desk makes it easy to flip back and forth between different project contexts in your favorite shell. Change directory, activate a virtualenv or rvm, load in domain-specific aliases, functions, arbitrary shell files, all in a single command.

Instead of relying on CTRL-R to execute and recall ("that command's gotta be here somewhere..."), desk helps shorten and document those actions with shell aliases and functions, which are then namespaced under a particular desk.

I have a hard time calling this a "workspace manager" with a straight face -- it's basically just a shell script that sources another shell script in a new shell. But I often find myself working in multiple different code trees simultaneously: the quick context switches and namespaced commands that desk facilitates have proven useful.

There are no dependencies other than some kind of Unix shell.

◲ desk 0.1.2 Usage: desk List the current desk and any associated aliases. If no desk is being used, display available desks. desk init Initialize desk configuration. desk (list|ls) List all desks along with a description. desk (.|go) desk-name Activate a desk. desk help Show this text. desk version Show version information. Since desk spawns a shell, to deactivate and "pop" out a desk, you simply need to exit or otherwise end the current shell process.

For example, given this deskfile (~/.desk/desks/tf.sh):

# tf.sh #  # Description: desk for doing work on a terraform-based repository # cd ~/terraform-repo # Set up AWS env variables: <key id> <secret> set_aws_env() { export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="$1" export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="$2" } # Run `terraform plan` with proper AWS var config plan() { terraform plan -module-depth=-1 \ -var "access_key=${AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID}" \ -var "secret_key=${AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY}" } # Run `terraform apply` with proper AWS var config alias apply='terraform apply'

we'd get

$ desk . tf $ desk tf desk for doing work on a terraform repo set_aws_env - Set up AWS env variables: <key id> <secret> plan - Run `terraform plan` with proper AWS var config apply - Run `terraform apply` with proper AWS var config

Basically, desk just associates a shell script (name.sh) with a name. When you call desk . name, desk drops you into a shell where name.sh has been executed, and then desk extracts out certain comments in name.sh for useful rendering.

0. git clone git@github.com:jamesob/desk.git && cd desk
1. sudo make install or cp desk ~/bin/desk
2. desk init
3. Start adding deskfiles to your config directory, e.g. ~/.desk/desks/hacking_gibson.sh

Deskfiles are just shell scripts, nothing more, that live in the desk config directory. Desk does pay attention to certain kinds of comments, though.

• description: you can describe a deskfile by including # Description: ... somewhere in the file.

• alias and function docs: if the line above an alias or function is a comment, it will be used as documentation.

Of course, the desk config directory (by default ~/.desks) can be a symlink so that deskfiles can be stored in some centralized place, like Dropbox, and so shared across many computers.

By default, desk configuration lives in ~/.desk ($DESK_DIR) and deskfiles live in ~/.desk/desks ($DESK_DESKS_DIR). If you want to use some other location, specify as much in desk init and then ensure you set $DESK_DIR and/or $DESK_DESKS_DIR to match in your shell's rc file.

Desk won't work when used strictly with ~/.bash_profile on OS X's terminal, since the content of ~/.bash_profile is only executed on login, not shell creation, as explained here.

My recommendation is to use ~/.bashrc as your general-purpose config file, then simply have ~/.bash_profile point to it:

# ~/.bash_profile if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then source ~/.bashrc fi

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