xonsh/xonsh

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_license

Adoption not part of the score

9622 stars · 736 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

Xonsh is a cross-platform shell whose language is a superset of Python 3, seamlessly mixing shell commands, pipelines, and Python code. It is extensible via xontribs and works on Linux, macOS, Windows, BSD, Android, and Nix.

Use cases

• python-powered shell for daily terminal use
• mix shell commands and python in scripts
• automate devops tasks with python in the shell
• replace bash with a cross-platform shell on windows and linux
• write shell aliases as python functions
• orchestrate other shells like fish and nushell from one shell

When to choose

• you know Python and want shell scripting without bash quirks
• you need one shell that works identically across Linux, macOS, and Windows
• you want to call Python libraries and subprocess commands interchangeably
• you want an extensible shell with a plugin ecosystem (xontribs)

When to avoid

• you need strict POSIX shell compatibility for existing scripts
• your team only knows bash/zsh and won't learn a Python-based language
• you need a minimal, lightweight shell for constrained environments
• you rely on tooling that assumes bash or zsh startup files

Facets

cli-tool · maturity active

cli interpreter programming-language developer-tools terminal-ui plugin-system developer-tools programming-languages windows bsd cross-platform python cli shell python-shell xontrib scripting meta-shell extensible-shell command-line automation devops linux macos android

Member repositories

For agents

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