Command Favorites

Commands I’ve learned, used, and want to remember. Each one earned its place here.

Quick Reference

Category Command Purpose

awk

awk 'NR>=X && NR⇐Y' file

Extract specific line range from file

jq

jq -r '.data | keys[]'

List all keys in JSON object

kubectl

kubectl get pods -o custom-columns=…​

Custom output format

Categories

Text Processing

  • AWK - Line extraction, patterns, aggregation

  • sed - Stream editing, in-place modifications

  • grep - Pattern matching, recursive search

Data & APIs

  • jq - JSON parsing, k8s secrets, Vault certs

  • curl - API testing, HTTP debugging

Shell Patterns

  • Heredocs - Multi-line input, config generation

  • xargs - Building command lines, parallel execution

  • find - File discovery, bulk operations

Infrastructure

  • kubectl - Secrets, IngressRoutes, exec patterns

  • k8s Network - Cilium BPF, NodePort, VXLAN troubleshooting

  • OpenSSL - TLS inspection, certificate verification

  • Security - bcrypt, Vault, gopass, firewalld, pfSense

DNS (dig)

Document Tools

Mixed

Philosophy

Commands here are:

  1. Battle-tested - Used in real work, not just tutorials

  2. Non-obvious - Worth documenting because I’d forget otherwise

  3. Powerful - Solve real problems elegantly

"The best command is the one you remember when you need it."