🦀 try-rs 🦀

A blazing fast, Rust-based workspace manager for your temporary experiments.

try-rs is a CLI tool designed to manage the chaos of temporary projects. Instead of cluttering your Desktop or /tmp with test1, new-test, and final-test, try-rs organizes them into date-prefixed directories, offering a robust TUI (Terminal User Interface) to create, navigate, and clean up your experiments.

💡 Inspiration

This project is a Rust port and re-imagination of the excellent try tool by Tobi Lütke.

While the original is a lightweight Ruby script, try-rs aims to bring the same philosophy, "Your experiments deserve a home", but with the performance, type safety, and modern TUI capabilities (using Ratatui) of the Rust ecosystem.

✨ Features

Feature	Description
🏎️ Blazing Fast	Built in Rust, compiled to native binary. No interpreter lag.
🖼️ Rich TUI	Beautiful terminal interface built with Ratatui.
🔍 Fuzzy Search	Instantly find old experiments with smart matching.
📅 Auto-Dating	Creates directories like `2025-12-17-rust-test` automatically.
🐙 Git Integration	Auto-clones URLs (`try-rs <url>`) and marks repos with ().
👀 Content Preview	Inspect files inside a folder before entering it.
📝 Editor Integration	Open experiments directly in your editor (`Ctrl+E`).
🎨 Theming	Customizable UI colors (Catppuccin Mocha default).
🗑️ Safe Deletion	Delete old experiments via UI with confirmation (`Ctrl+D`).
⚙️ Configurable	Supports XDG Base Directory (`~/.config/try-rs/config.toml`).

📦 Installation

Prerequisites

Rust & Cargo installed.
A shell (Fish, Zsh, Bash).
A Nerd Font installed (required for icons like  and 🦀).

Building from source

git clone [https://github.com/tassiovirginio/try-rs.git](https://github.com/tassiovirginio/try-rs)
cd try-rs
cargo install --path . --bin try-rs

Cargo install try-rs

cargo install try-rs

Install in Archlinux

yay -S try-rs-bin

Nix Install (flakes)

nix profile install github:tassiovirginio/try-rs

⚙️ Configuration

Setup the Shell Integration

Since try-rs needs to change your shell's current directory, it requires a small wrapper function.

🐟 Fish Shell (Recommended)

try-rs --setup fish

(Optional) Create an abbreviation:

abbr --add try try-rs

🐚 Zsh

try-rs --setup zsh

🐚 Bash

try-rs --setup bash

Config File By default, experiments are stored in ~/work/tries. You can customize the path and the UI colors (themes). To change this, create ~/.config/try-rs/config.toml:

# ~/.config/try-rs/config.toml
tries_path = "~/Development/playground"
editor = "code" # Optional: code, nvim, hx, etc.

[colors]
title_try = "Magenta"
title_rs = "White"
search_box = "Green"
list_date = "Blue"
list_highlight_bg = "Magenta"
list_highlight_fg = "Black"
help_text = "DarkGray"
status_message = "Yellow"
popup_bg = "DarkGray"
popup_text = "LightRed"

🚀 Usage

Simply type try-rs (or your alias) in your terminal.

Key Bindings

Key	Action
`Type`	Filter the list (Fuzzy Search)
`↑` / `↓`	Navigate the list
`Enter`	Select directory (or create new if text doesn't match)
`Ctrl+D`	Delete the selected directory (triggers popup)
`Ctrl+E`	Open in editor (configured in config.toml)
`Esc`	Cancel / Close Popup

CLI Commands

You can also bypass the UI:

Command	Description
`try-rs`	Opens the TUI
`try-rs <name>`	Create (or jump to) a named experiment
`try-rs <https://github.com/user/repo>`	Clones a repository into a dated folder
`try-rs --setup <shell>`	setup shell integration (fish, zsh, bash)
`try-rs --version`	Show application version
`try-rs --help`	Show help message

🤝 Contributing Pull requests are welcome! For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

📄 License MIT

try-rs 0.1.18