Documentation

f:ist Documentation

F:ist (Fist: Interactive Search Tool) is a fast, keyboard-first browser and launcher for your filesystem. It wraps fd, ripgrep, eza, and a zoxide-style jump database in one cohesive, extensible terminal interface.

Quick startCore workflowsExplore panesMenu actions

Apology for this documentation. These pages are an AI-drafted, incomplete scaffold — the prose will be rewritten by hand later.

Browse by topic

Getting started

Get up and running with installation, first launch, and core navigation.

• Getting started→
• Core workflows→

Panes & Navigation

Understand the pane stack model, fuzzy filtering, and search backends.

• Panes overview→
• Navigation, in depth→
• The find pane (fd)→
• The search pane (rg)→
• History & database→
• Stash panes→
• The custom pane→
• Visibility→
• Sorting→

Menu & Scripting

User-defined actions, their Lua, and the queue they schedule.

• Lua scripting→
• Menu actions→
• The queue→

Configuration

Config files, preview presets (lessfilter), the pager, and the matchmaker UI layer.

• Configuration→
• lessfilter→
• The pager→
• mm.toml→

Mechanics & Extensibility

Shell hooks, the command line, tools, and output formatting.

• Shell integration→
• Command line→
• Tools (fs :tool)→
• Output & templates→

The mental model

Everything in f:ist happens inside a pane — a filterable, sortable, previewable list of paths — and the stack of panes you've visited:

• The Nav pane browses a directory.
• Find, Search, History, Apps, Stash and Custom panes produce lists from different sources (fd, ripgrep, the history database, your app registry, a stash, or any command's output).
• Undo / Redo (ctrl-z / ctrl-shift-z) walk back and forth through your pane history. There is no way to get lost.
• The queue holds pending file operations (copy/cut/paste).
• The menu (ctrl-e) exposes context-aware actions for the current selection.

You rarely switch "modes". Instead you filter what you see (type to fuzzy-match, ctrl-s to show hidden files, ctrl-d to show only directories) and act on the result with one or two keys.

Quick keybinding cheat sheet

Shortcut	Action	Scope
Enter	Accept item (cd directory / open file)	Everywhere
ctrl-f	Open Find pane (fd recursive filename search)	Everywhere
ctrl-r	Open Search pane (rg full-text search)	Everywhere
ctrl-g	Open History pane (recents database)	Everywhere
ctrl-e	Open Context Menu (actions & tools)	Everywhere
ctrl-z / ctrl-shift-z	Undo / Redo pane navigation	Everywhere
?	Toggle file preview	Everywhere
alt-h	In-app keybinding help	Everywhere

Need full reference? Run fs :tool show-binds from your shell or check the menu actions chapter for Lua action schemas.