file-nav_skill

Overview

This skill helps you navigate and find files quickly using fd, a fast and user-friendly alternative to find. It provides practical commands and options to list directory contents, filter by type or extension, control search depth, and execute actions on matching files. Use it to explore project structure, locate configuration or test files, and perform batch operations on results.

How this skill works

The skill builds on fd’s regex-first search model and exposes common flags for targeted file discovery: type filters (-t), extension filters (-e), depth control (--max-depth/--min-depth), and inclusion/exclusion of hidden or gitignored files (-H, -I, -u, -E). It also shows output modes (null-separated, long format), ways to run commands on matches (-x), and patterns for glob vs regex searches (-g). Recommendations focus on combining fd with other CLI tools like rg, xargs, wc, and shell commands.

When to use it

• Finding files or directories by name or pattern across a project
• Listing directory contents with depth control, like a recursive ls
• Exploring a project’s top-level or nested structure
• Filtering files by extension, type, size, or modification time
• Running commands on batches of matching files (delete, chmod, count)

Best practices

• Specify a starting directory to narrow the search and improve speed
• Use extension (-e) and type (-t) filters to avoid scanning irrelevant files
• Limit search depth (--max-depth) in large repositories
• Exclude heavy folders (e.g., -E node_modules -E .git) to speed up results
• Combine fd -0 with xargs -0 or use -x for safe command execution on matches

Example use cases

• Show top-level project structure: fd . --max-depth 1
• Find all TypeScript sources: fd -e ts -e tsx -e js -e jsx
• Locate config files: fd -g "*.{json,yaml,yml,edn,toml}" --max-depth 2
• Find recently modified files: fd --changed-within 1d
• Delete all .log files: fd -e log -x rm