contxt

cont(e)xt

i created contxt as a tool for my self to keep track where i had stored releated content for different Projects, and also what specific techniques and configurations are required.

installation

Linux

check out the releases to get a pre-build package.

shell integration

it is not the main feature of contxt, but fast switching to the related directories is at the end the most used feature in may daily workflow. Contxt itself have no control about the current directory of the current shell in there contxt is running. After any binary exists, it is still in the same path as before. this is the regular behavior for all executables in a shell. to fix this issue, contxt will be mapped by a shell function called ctx (for contxt itself), and cn for changing directories depending the current project.

this works because shell functions are in same context. so for any supported shell a shell function is needed.

for bash you just need to run contxt install bashrc. the functions ctx and cn will be created in the .bashrc file

for zsh use contxt install zsh. the functions ctx and cn will be created in the first directory in the FPATH that is write and readable for the current user.

for fish use contxt install fish. the functions ctx and cn will be created in the default function directory ~/.config/fish/functions

windows

currently the windows version is work in progess depending the shell integration. so there is currently no package deployment and also no function mapping. the windows version can be downloaded as a binary, but any integration have to be done manually.

powershell 7 support

the default supported shell on windows is powershell. if you have powershell 7 installed, you can set these as default shell as environment variable. $env:CTX_DEFAULT_CMD = "pwsh"

pwsh is one of the possible commands for powershell. they exists also others for previews etc. fit them if needed.

ansii support is disabled as long the default powershell version is lower then 7. you can force the usage of ansii codes with $env:CTX_COLOR = "ON"

workspaces

Workspaces are a set of directories they can be on different places. Any path can have different task they can be executed automatically if you enter or leava a workspace. this allows you to setup different needs depending on the workspace.

usage

after executing the shell integration steps, you should use ctx instead of contxt

different to contxt. ctx is a shell function and is able to change the directory. so contxt can still change the workspace, but after runtime, the shell will stay on the directory as before.

but ctx, as a shell function, is able to change the current directory.

context navigate (cn)

for navigation use the cn command to change paths depending on the current workspace.

cn will change the directory to the last used path in this workspace.

cn website will change to the last matching path in the workspace, that contains the word website

cn 2 will change to the third stored path. (because it starts at 0 for the first stored path)

cn website php frontend similar to cn website but if no website can be found on any of the assigned paths, pah and afterwards frontend will be used to find a matching path

create a new workspace

ctx dir -w mywork will create a new workspace named mywork. if mywork already exists the workspace will be entered only.

ctx dir add adds the current directory to the workspace. so you have to got to the directory first they needs to be added to the workspace.

ctx dir rm removes the current directory from the current workspace. current directory means the actual path (pwd). like add you have to change into this directory.

ctx dir -paths prints all assigned paths. any path have index.

ctx dir list prints all workspaces you have.

ctx switch my-other-work if this workspace exists you will leave the last one. this means if you have a task assigned to the leave trigger this will be executed for the last workspace. And if you have a task assigned to the enter trigger it will be excuted afterwards. without to much detail about task. here a example of a task that have a enter and leave action and uses kubectx and kubens.

config:
  autorun:
    onleave: leave
    onenter: init
  variables:
    namespace: production-ns
    context: "company-aws"
    context-leave: minikube
task:
  - id: init
    script:
      - kubectx ${context}
      - kubens ${namespace}
      - kubectl get pods
 
  - id: leave
    script:
      - kubectx ${context-leave}

so if this is the task for a path in workspace company and you run ctx switch company then the task with id init will be executed and the kubernetes context and namespaces will be set to what is needed there.

but to be sure, if you switch to any other workspace, that might not have any kubernetes related action, the leave task is triggered. in this case it will just set the context to the local minikube to make sure what ever you do, the procution environment is not affected.

you can switch the workspace also just by typing ctx <existing-workspace>.

Tasks

more about tasks

used libraries

there are of course more dependencies, but these are important depending working with placeholders and variables. so it is usefull to know how they are working.

go/template extension https://github.com/Masterminds/sprig template docu

The Go language comes with a built-in template language, but not very many template functions. Sprig is a library that provides more than 100 commonly used template functions.

for parsing json by paths https://github.com/tidwall/gjson

GJSON is a Go package that provides a fast and simple way to get values from a json document. It has features such as one line retrieval, dot notation paths, iteration, and parsing json lines.