Creating Aliases in Your Terminal

Create aliases to perform actions faster in your terminal

  1. 1. Open your terminal

    Open your terminal

  2. 2. Type "ls -a" and press enter to list all available files

    Type "ls -a" and press enter to list all available files

  3. 3. You'll see a list of all files, including hidden files

    You're looking for your shell files. If using zsh, you'll look for .zshrc. If using Bash, you'll look for .bash_profile

    You'll see a list of all files, including hidden files

  4. 4. Open your shell config file

    For example, if using VS Code and zsh like I am, you'll use the command code ~/.zshrc

    If using Atom and Bash, you would use the command atom ~/.bash_profile

    You may be using a different IDE and/or shell, in which case you can look up the equivalent command and file name

    Open your shell config file

visualstudiocode

  1. 5. At the bottom of your file there may already be a place for aliases. If not, create a new section and add a comment indicating this is where you'll define aliases

    At the bottom of your file there may already be a place for aliases. If not, create a new section and add a comment indicating this is where you'll define aliases

  2. 6. Add your alias(es)

    These are a few of mine, and I've added alias start="npm run start" to the list

    Add your alias(es)

  3. 7. Save your file

    On mac: cmd + s

    On PC: ctrl + s

    Save your file

  4. 8. Update your terminal to use the new alias(es)

    To apply changes, restart your terminal or type source <filename>

    That's it!

    Update your terminal to use the new alias(es)