mitnk/cicada

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

1006 stars · 51 forks observed · 2026-09-22

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

Cicada is a bash-like Unix shell written in Rust that supports pipelines, redirections, command substitution, job control, completion, and scripting. It can be installed via cargo or pre-built binaries and set as a login shell on Linux and macOS.

Use cases

• replace bash with a shell written in Rust
• run pipelines and redirections in a lightweight shell
• do math arithmetic directly in the shell
• try an alternative login shell on Linux or macOS
• write shell scripts with a simple bash-like syntax
• customize prompt, completion, and history in a Unix shell

When to choose

• you want a simple, fast bash-like shell implemented in Rust
• you want built-in arithmetic without subshells
• you're curious about alternative Unix shells and job control features

When to avoid

• you need full POSIX/bash compatibility for existing scripts
• you rely on advanced bash features like extensive parameter expansion or arrays
• you need a shell with a large plugin ecosystem like zsh

Facets

application · maturity active

cli interpreter developer-tools operating-systems developer-tools cli rust unix-shell bash-like login-shell shell-scripting command-line linux macos

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="mitnk/cicada")