# coreutils/coreutils

Public mirror. Pull requests and Issues accepted

Repository: https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/coreutils-coreutils
Homepage: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=coreutils.git
Language: C
License: GPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Last push: 2026-08-26T17:31:50+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 88/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 68, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4805, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 135, "gap_med": 64.0, "n_releases_24m": 3}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 5268, forks 1067 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:13.919059+00:00)

## What it is
GNU coreutils is the standard collection of GNU command-line utilities (ls, cp, mv, cat, sort, chmod, etc.) that form the basis of most Unix-like systems. It merges the former fileutils, sh-utils, and textutils packages and conforms to POSIX with extensions.

## Use cases
- manipulate files from the command line
- compute file checksums like sha256sum
- sort and process text streams in shell scripts
- get a POSIX-compliant set of Unix utilities on macOS
- contribute to or study foundational GNU C code

## When to choose
- you need the canonical GNU implementations of standard Unix commands
- you want utilities with more options and fewer limits than BSD counterparts
- you're building a Linux distribution or minimal system

## When to avoid
- you need a modern alternative with JSON output or colored defaults like uutils or exa
- you're targeting Windows-only environments without a POSIX layer
- you want a lightweight busybox-style single binary

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: stable
- function: cli, file-system, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, operating-systems
- platform: cli, cross-platform
- tags: gnu, core-utilities, posix, shell-tools, c, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- coreutils/coreutils (main) score 88

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:13.919059+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:59:28.884480+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:13.919059+00:00, sha 4e08e84f143b)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.