Lightweight workspace manager for the shell.

Desk makes it easy to flip back and forth between different project contexts in your favorite shell. Change directory, activate a virtualenv or rvm, load in domain-specific aliases, functions, arbitrary shell files, all in a single command.

Instead of relying on CTRL-R to execute and recall ("that command's gotta be here somewhere..."), desk helps shorten and document those actions with shell aliases and functions, which are then namespaced under a particular desk.

I have a hard time calling this a "workspace manager" with a straight face -- it's basically just a shell script that sources another shell script in a new shell. But I often find myself working in multiple different code trees simultaneously: the quick context switches and namespaced commands that desk facilitates have proven useful.

There are no dependencies other than bash. Desk is explicitly tested with bash, zsh, and fish.

◲  desk 0.3.1

Usage:

    desk
        List the current desk and any associated aliases. If no desk
        is being used, display available desks.
    desk init
        Initialize desk configuration.
    desk (list|ls)
        List all desks along with a description.
    desk (.|go) desk-name
        Activate a desk.
    desk edit [desk-name]
        Edit (or create) a deskfile with the name specified, otherwise
        edit the active deskfile.
    desk help
        Show this text.
    desk version
        Show version information.

Since desk spawns a shell, to deactivate and "pop" out a desk, you
simply need to exit or otherwise end the current shell process.

For example, given this deskfile (~/.desk/desks/tf.sh):

# tf.sh
#
# Description: desk for doing work on a terraform-based repository
#

cd ~/terraform-repo

# Set up AWS env variables: <key id> <secret>
set_aws_env() {
  export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="$1"
  export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="$2"
}

# Run `terraform plan` with proper AWS var config
plan() {
  terraform plan -module-depth=-1 \
    -var "access_key=${AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID}" \
    -var "secret_key=${AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY}"
}

# Run `terraform apply` with proper AWS var config
alias apply='terraform apply'

we'd get

$ desk . tf
$ desk

tf
desk for doing work on a terraform repo

  set_aws_env - Set up AWS env variables: <key id> <secret>
  plan - Run `terraform plan` with proper AWS var config
  apply - Run `terraform apply` with proper AWS var config

Basically, desk just associates a shell script (name.sh) with a name. When you call desk . name, desk drops you into a shell where name.sh has been executed, and then desk extracts out certain comments in name.sh for useful rendering.

0. curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jamesob/desk/master/desk > ~/bin/desk
1. less ~/bin/desk to make sure you've downloaded what you think you've downloaded.
2. chmod +x ~/bin/desk
3. desk init
4. Start adding deskfiles to your config directory, e.g. ~/.desk/desks/hacking_gibson.sh

Note that ~/bin may not exist on your system, or may not be on your PATH. Feel free to substitute that for another directory, e.g. /usr/local/bin, and add sudo as necessary.

0. Add antigen bundle jamesob/desk to your .zshrc
1. Open a new terminal window. Antigen will clone the desk repo and add it to your path.

0. cd ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins
1. git clone [email protected]:jamesob/desk.git
2. Add desk to your plugin list

0. Add zgen load jamesob/desk to your .zshrc with your other load commands
1. rm ~/.zgen/init.zsh
2. Start a new shell; zgen will generate a new init.zsh and automatically clone the desk repository for you and add it to your path.

Deskfiles are just shell scripts, nothing more, that live in the desk config directory. Desk does pay attention to certain kinds of comments, though.

• description: you can describe a deskfile by including # Description: ... somewhere in the file.

• alias and function docs: if the line above an alias or function is a comment, it will be used as documentation.

Of course, the desk config directory (by default ~/.desks) can be a symlink so that deskfiles can be stored in some centralized place, like Dropbox, and so shared across many computers.

By default, desk configuration lives in ~/.desk ($DESK_DIR) and deskfiles live in ~/.desk/desks ($DESK_DESKS_DIR). If you want to use some other location, specify as much in desk init and then ensure you set $DESK_DIR and/or $DESK_DESKS_DIR to match in your shell's rc file.

Desk won't work when used strictly with ~/.bash_profile on OS X's terminal, since the content of ~/.bash_profile is only executed on login, not shell creation, as explained here.

My recommendation is to use ~/.bashrc as your general-purpose config file, then simply have ~/.bash_profile point to it:

# ~/.bash_profile

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
   source ~/.bashrc
fi

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