de

de is a tiny inline directory explorer and navigator. It shows the current directory, lets you walk into or out of folders, and changes the shell's working directory only when you confirm.

At normal terminal widths, the left pane is the directory you are currently exploring and the right pane previews the highlighted destination. Below 58 columns, de collapses to a single pane instead of squeezing the listings. Each pane shows local modification times when it is wide enough to keep the entry names readable.

It is intentionally not a full file manager. Files stay visually secondary to directories, but o can hand the highlighted file to its default application. There are no delete, rename, copy, or built-in edit commands.

Install

Install from crates.io with Cargo (the package is named de-cli, but the installed command is de):

cargo install de-cli --locked

--locked tells Cargo to use the exact dependency versions in the published Cargo.lock—the same versions tested for this release—instead of resolving newer compatible versions. It is optional, but makes the install reproducible.

Prebuilt archives for Linux and macOS on x86-64 and ARM64 are available from GitHub Releases. Each archive includes de, this README, and the MIT license; SHA-256 checksums are published alongside the archives. Extract the archive, then place de somewhere on your PATH.

Or Build from source

cargo build --release
export PATH="$PWD/target/release:$PATH"
de

Shell integration

The de executable cannot change its parent shell's working directory by itself. de init <shell> prints a small wrapper function to stdout; it does not modify your shell configuration. The commands below evaluate that function in your current shell. Add the same command to the listed startup file to enable de in future shells.

Bash

Run now, then add the same line to ~/.bashrc:

eval "$(command de init bash)"

Zsh

Run now, then add the same line to ~/.zshrc:

eval "$(command de init zsh)"

Fish

Run now, then add the same line to ~/.config/fish/config.fish:

command de init fish | source

eval and source load the generated wrapper into the current shell. The command de calls explicitly invoke the executable even after that wrapper is defined. The wrapper captures the directory printed by the executable and then asks the parent shell to cd there.

Controls

Key	Action
Up / Down, j / k	Select an entry
PageUp / PageDown	Jump one visible page through the entries
Right, l, Tab	Make the previewed directory current
Left, h, Backspace	Go to the parent directory
/	Filter entries in the current directory
s	Toggle sorting by name or modification time
Shift+S	Toggle ascending or descending order
o	Open the highlighted file with its default application
Enter	Change to the directory currently displayed
.	Toggle hidden entries
w	Save the current hidden and sort settings as defaults
r	Refresh
Escape, q, Ctrl-C	Cancel without changing directory

The important distinction is that Enter accepts the directory in the header, not the highlighted child. Use Right to explore and Enter when you have arrived.

Press o on a file to open it with the operating system's default application. On Linux, de uses xdg-open; on macOS, it uses open. Opening a file exits the picker without changing the shell's working directory. Directories continue to use the navigation controls above.

Filtering uses a case-insensitive substring match. Type after pressing /, use the normal arrow and page keys to move through matches, and press Backspace to edit the query. Escape clears an active filter first; press it again to cancel de.

Name sorting is case-insensitive and alphabetical. Sort criterion and direction are independent, so modification time can show either oldest or newest first. Directories remain grouped above files in every mode, and the selected sort carries into the preview pane and navigated directories.

Configuration

Settings live in one config.toml. On both Linux and macOS it is $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/de/config.toml, or ~/.config/de/config.toml when XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset or not an absolute path. macOS does not use ~/Library/Application Support.

de config        # change settings with a live preview
de config path   # print the file's location
de config edit   # open it in $VISUAL or $EDITOR, creating it if needed

de config lists hidden entries, sort, order, the modified column, date format, time format, and timezone beside the current directory, rendered with those settings as you change them. Use Up/Down to pick a setting and Left/Right to change it. Enter saves every setting shown, leaving other settings and comments untouched; Escape cancels without writing anything. A custom_format can only be written in the file itself, but once it exists the picker offers custom as a date format and never removes it. Themes are chosen with de theme.

de config edit falls back to vi when neither variable is set, and checks the file after the editor exits so a typo is reported immediately rather than on the next launch. The sections below describe what the file can contain.

Defaults

Hidden entries, sort criterion, and sort direction reset to their defaults each time de starts. To change what it starts with, set them up the way you like and press w. That writes them to the [defaults] table in config.toml, leaving other settings and comments untouched. Toggling during a session never changes the saved defaults on its own.

You can also edit the table directly:

[defaults]
hidden = false
sort = "name"
order = "ascending"

hidden is true or false, sort accepts name or modified, and order accepts ascending or descending. Omitted keys keep the values shown above.

Themes

Run the interactive selector to preview the real picker with every built-in and custom theme, then save the one you choose:

de theme

Use Left/Right or Up/Down to preview auto, light, dark, mono, ocean, forest, amber, and rose. Enter saves the displayed theme; Escape cancels without changing the saved choice.

For a one-time override, use de --theme dark. DE_THEME=mono de provides an environment-level override. Precedence is command-line flag, environment, saved choice, then auto.

The auto theme uses the terminal's default foreground and background, its ANSI palette, and reverse video for selection. That adapts without trying to guess the background color or waiting for a terminal query.

Create an editable custom theme with:

de theme create midnight

That adds a complete starting palette to config.toml without replacing other settings or comments:

[theme]
selected = "midnight"

[themes.midnight]
extends = "dark"
accent = "#7dd3fc"
text = "default"
muted = "#94a3b8"
title = "#c4b5fd"
error = "#fb7185"
symlink = "#f0abfc"
selection_fg = "#0f172a"
selection_bg = "#67e8f9"
reverse_selection = false
dim_muted = false

Every field after extends is optional. A custom theme can extend any built-in theme and override only what it needs. Colors accept #RRGGBB, default, or ANSI names such as blue, light-cyan, and dark-gray. After editing, run de theme to preview it alongside the built-ins. Custom names also work with --theme and DE_THEME.

Date and time

Modification timestamps use local time in YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM form by default. Change their presentation in the same config.toml file:

[display]
modified = true
date_format = "iso"
time_format = "24h"
timezone = "local"

date_format accepts iso, us, european, relative, or custom:

Setting	Example
iso	2026-08-25 15:02
us with time_format = "12h"	08/25/26 03:02 PM
european	25/08/26 15:02
relative	4 min ago, yesterday, 3 months ago

time_format accepts 12h or 24h, and timezone accepts local or utc. Set modified = false to hide the column entirely. Sorting by modification time still uses the exact filesystem timestamp regardless of its presentation.

For complete control, use a Chrono strftime format:

[display]
date_format = "custom"
custom_format = "%b %e, %Y at %l:%M %p"
timezone = "local"

Custom formats replace both the date and time presets; relative timestamps do not use the clock or timezone settings. Column width follows the rendered values automatically. When the terminal is too narrow to retain a readable filename column, timestamps collapse away with the rest of the responsive layout.

Built with

• Ratatui renders the interactive panes and layout.
• Crossterm handles terminal input, raw mode, cursor movement, and colors.
• Clap parses arguments and generates the styled help, version, subcommand, and error output.
• toml_edit reads and updates configuration while retaining the user's formatting and comments.

The small relative-coordinate backend in src/backend.rs keeps the picker inline without requiring the terminal to answer an absolute cursor-position query. This is useful in PTYs and layered terminal environments.

Development

cargo fmt --check
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings
cargo test

The README demo is driven by the checked-in Terminal Control tape. To replay it after building the release binary:

cargo build --release
termctrl play demo/de.tape

The tape creates and removes its own synthetic fixture under /tmp; its private .termctrl timeline and intermediate MP4 are gitignored. demo/de.gif is the small public artifact embedded above.

The UI is rendered on stderr so stdout remains a clean selected-path protocol for the shell wrapper. On Unix, path bytes are preserved by the executable; like most command-substitution integrations, directories whose names end in newline characters are outside the supported shell-wrapper boundary.