Plain English to Shell Command

Turn a plain-English task into a shell command with a flag-by-flag explanation, a blast-radius warning, and a dry-run first for anything destructive.

Give me a shell command for this task: [TASK, e.g. "find every file over 100MB modified in the last week, excluding node_modules"]

My environment: [macOS / Linux / Windows (WSL or Git Bash)], shell: [zsh / bash / don't know]

Format the answer as:

1. THE COMMAND: one pasteable line (or two clear commands if that's more readable than one clever pipeline; I will have to debug this someday, and boring beats clever).

2. FLAG BY FLAG: every flag and argument on its own line: what it does in THIS command, not the man-page definition. Running a command I can't read is how people delete home directories.

3. BLAST RADIUS: one honest line: read-only, or does it create/modify/delete? If it modifies or deletes ANYTHING:
- Give the preview version FIRST (the find without -delete, rm as ls, rsync/git with --dry-run) and label it "run this first".
- Then the real version, clearly marked.
- Name the worst case if a path or variable is wrong or empty ("if $DIR is unset, this runs against /").

4. PORTABILITY: where this breaks across systems: macOS ships BSD tools, so sed -i, date, xargs, and grep flags differ from Linux/GNU; say which parts are affected and give the variant for my stated OS. If something needs installing, name it (brew install X / apt install X).

Rules:
- sudo, curl-piped-to-shell, --force, recursive deletes, chmod -R: only when genuinely required, each with a one-line justification of the risk I'm accepting.
- If the task deserves a script instead of a one-liner (loops, error handling, more than two pipes doing logic), say so and write the 10-line script with set -euo pipefail instead.
- If my request is ambiguous in a way that changes what gets touched ("clean up old files": how old? where?), state the assumption you chose at the top rather than guessing silently.

How to use

The descendant of the original 'act as a Linux terminal' prompt, aimed at the real daily need: getting a command you can trust without reverse-engineering Stack Overflow answers. The preview-first rule is the safety net. Make running it a habit even when the output looks obvious. For commands you'll reuse, follow up with 'turn this into a shell function with a confirm step'.

More coding prompts

Write the commit message for this change.

Diff:
"""
[PASTE THE STAGED DIFF]
"""

Why I made this change: [THE REASON, THE TICKET, THE BUG REPORT, or "you infer it"]
Convention: [Conventional Commits / this repo's existing style, pasted below / plain]
Recent commits from this repo, to match style:
"""
[PASTE 5-10 RECENT COMMIT SUBJECT LIN

Commit Message

Write a commit message that explains why the change was made, in Conventional Commits format, split into separate commits when needed.

Codingbeginner

Help me recover from a git mistake without making it worse.

What I was trying to do: [THE GOAL]
What I ran: [THE EXACT COMMANDS, IN ORDER]
What happened instead: [THE OUTPUT OR THE STATE NOW]
Has this been pushed or shared: [YES/NO, and to which branch and whether anyone else has pulled]
Uncommitted work I cannot lose: [WHAT AND WHERE, o

Undo a Git Mistake

Recover from a bad commit, force push, wrong branch, or lost work with a reversible plan and the exact commands, explained before you run them.

Codingintermediate

Handler code, routes, and models:
"""
[PASTE THE ROUTE DEFINITIONS, HANDLERS, REQUEST AND RESPONSE TYPES, VALIDATION SCHEMAS, AND MIDDLEWARE]
"""

Generate an OpenAPI 3.1 specification from the code above.

API name, version, and base URL: [DETAILS]
Auth scheme: [BEARER JWT / API KEY / OAUTH / SESSION COOKIE, and where it is enforced]
Con

OpenAPI Spec From Code

Generate an accurate OpenAPI 3.1 spec from handler code, including error responses and auth, with gaps flagged instead of invented.