The Secret Senior Dev Trick to Never Re-type Commands

This article provides a simple yet effective solution to organize your terminal aliases, preventing your .zshrc or .bashrc file from becoming a chaotic mess. By creating separate alias files for different tasks like Git and Flutter, you can maintain a cleaner and more manageable development environment.

Step 1: Know Your Shell

Before diving in, determine which shell you're using. On macOS (Catalina and later), it's likely zsh. Older versions might use bash. You can check by running echo $SHELL in your terminal.

Step 2: Create a Folder for Your Aliases

Create a directory to store all your alias files:

mkdir ~/.aliases

Step 3: Create Separate Alias Files

Create individual files for different alias categories, such as Git and Flutter:

touch ~/.aliases/git_aliases.zsh
touch ~/.aliases/flutter_aliases.zsh

Step 4: Connect Them to Your .zshrc Using a Variable

Open your .zshrc file (nano ~/.zshrc) and add the following block:


ALIAS_DIR="$HOME/.aliases"

for file in "$ALIAS_DIR"/*.zsh; do

[ -f "$file" ] && source "$file"

done

This block defines a variable ALIAS_DIR to store the path to your aliases folder. The for loop then iterates through each .zsh file in that folder and sources it, loading the aliases into your shell.

Why This Is Better

Easy to update alias folder location.
Keeps your .zshrc clean and readable.
Simplifies adding new alias files.