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gist - Manage your gist like a pro

All your notes, scripts, config files and snippets deserve version control and tagging!
gist is a simple bash script for gist management. It is lightweight(~700LOC) and dependency-free! Helps you to boost coding workflow.

Getting Started

# Install with script on GitHub Page
curl -L https://git.io/J3DXe -o gist # This shortened link points to the bash script
sudo install -m755 gist /usr/local/bin/gist # Install this script wherever you like
# Fetch your gists and clone them into ~/gist as git repos
gist fetch
# List your gists
gist
# Create a new gist
gist new
# Create private gist with files 'foo' and 'bar'
gist new -p foo bar
# Check information of your third gist
gist detail 3
# Get the path and cd to cloned repo with subshell
gist 3
# List your gists with tags instead of URL
gist tag
# Add tags to your third gist
gist tag 3
# Update the description of your third gist
gist edit 3
# Push changes in your third gist to the remote repo
gist push 3
# Delete gists with indices 3, 4 and 5
gist delete 3 4 5
# Or use Brace Expansion
gist delete {3..5}
# Export your third gist as a new Github repo with web page
gist github 3
# For more detail, read the helper message
gist help

Dependencies

OK…I lied, this script really depends on some very basic dev tools. - GNU coreutils
Used to process text streams. Also, if you are on Mac and use sed, tail with BSD version, then it is still fine! - wget or curl
Used to making request to github.com. - git
Do not tell me you don’t have it on your machine… - Python
Both 2 and 3 works. It is used to process JSON response from github.com and launch default browser.(Only built-in modules are used)

Basic Commands

Update and clone gists from Github

Run gist fetch to fetch your all gists with Github API and keep short information for each gist in a index file inside a given folder. (default to ~/gist/index) - Automatically Clone/Pull each gist with git into a given folder. (default to ~/gist/) - Run gist fetch star to fetch your starred gist - If token is not being set, then you cannot fetch your private gist

List your gists

Run gist to read index file (default to ~/gist/index) and list your gists with the following format: 

<index> <gist-URL> <files-number> <comments-number> <description>
like the following:

  • Use gist star to show your starred gists
  • Use gist all to show your and starred gists
  • Index with prefix s is a starred gist, index with prefix p is a private gist
  • There are colorful hints for each gist in the following cases:
    • working Some changes are made locally but not yet do git commit, or you are not in master branch
    • ahead Your local HEAD is yet to be applied to upstream
    • outdated Your local HEAD is differs from the last fetched gists, do gist fetch to refresh index file and pull if needed

Create a new gist

Run gist new to create a new gist - You can create a new gist with 3 different ways: 1. type the content by hand, run gist new 2. use existing files, run gist new <file1> <file2>... 3. from STDIN, like <command> | gist new - You can specify filename with --file, and description with --desc, like gist new --file new --desc 'a new gist' - If you don’t specify filename or description, a prompt will shows up!

Modify a gist

Run gist <INDEX> to enter sub-shell with working directory of the given gist index (by default action). You can do some trick with custom action.(See action and Tips)

Since now a gist is a local cloned repo, it is your business to do git commit and git push. Use gist push <INDEX> is not recommended.

Clean unnecessary local repos

Say you delete gists with command gist delete <index-of-gist>..., the local git repositories are still at ~/gist/.
Run gist clean to move them into /tmp/gist/.

Configuration

gist stores your configuraion inside ~/.config/gist.conf, with <key>=<value> format for each line. And just do source ~/.config/gist.conf at runtime.

generated by cgit v1.2.3-70-g09d2 (git 2.46.0) at 2025-07-02 03:59:07 +0800