What is fasd?

Fasd is a small shell utility that keeps track of which files and directories you visit most often in the terminal, so you can jump back to them quickly without typing out long paths. Instead of typing the full path to a file buried several folders deep, you type a few letters that appear somewhere in the name and fasd finds the best match based on how often and how recently you have accessed it. The project calls this ranking approach "frecency," a combination of frequency and recency. The typical use case is navigation. If you have visited a directory called /some/long/path/to/myproject many times, you can jump there with a short command like z myproject rather than typing the full path or pressing Tab repeatedly. Similarly, you can open files in any program without knowing exactly where they live, typing something like v conf to open the most relevant config file in your editor. Fasd also supports interactive selection when multiple results match, displaying a numbered list so you can pick the right one. Setup involves adding a single initialization line to your shell configuration file. Fasd then installs a hook that runs silently after each command, recording any files or directories you touched. It works with bash, zsh, and other POSIX-compatible shells and is distributed as a single self-contained shell script with no external dependencies. The tool is inspired by earlier projects called autojump, z, and v, and its name reflects four default shorthand aliases it ships with: f for files, a for any (files or directories), s for search and select, and d for directories. It can be installed through most Linux and macOS package managers or copied manually into any directory on your system path.