Reg

Reg is a small Bash tool for persistent aliases and named command groups. Each group runs in your current shell, in order, and stops when a step fails.

Installation

From a downloaded or cloned checkout:

bash installer.sh
source "$HOME/.local/share/reg/reg.sh"

The installer uses the local checkout, requires no sudo or download, and installs privately in ~/.local/share/reg. It adds the source line to .bashrc for future Bash sessions. Reinstallation preserves saved commands; a failed installation restores the previous directory. On the first upgrade from the original /usr/local/bin/reg/reg-master installation, its command file is copied if present. The old directory is left intact.

To use a checkout directly, source its reg.sh using its full path.

Command groups

Quote each step as a separate argument:

reg add pull "git pull origin master" "vagrant provision" "gulp build"
reg pull
reg list
reg list pull
reg list pull -num
reg remove pull

Names use letters, digits, underscores, dots and hyphens, and start with a letter, digit or underscore. Built-in names (add, remove, list, alias, env, reload, man) are reserved. Empty steps and duplicate names are rejected. Failures return a nonzero status.

Step numbers start at 1. Skip selected steps with -s, or run only selected steps with -t; execution always follows the group's original order:

reg pull -s "2,3"  # only git pull
reg pull -t "2,3"  # only provision and build

Commands are shell code: pipes, quotes, wildcards and semicolons work normally. They are preserved during registration and evaluated only when the group runs. Changes such as cd or export affect the current shell. Save only commands you intend to execute.

Shell aliases and environment variables

reg alias gc 'git commit -m'
reg alias -d gc
reg env GREETING 'hello world'
reg env -d GREETING
reg reload

Alias and environment changes update .bashrc and the current shell without restarting it. Values are saved literally, including spaces and quotes. Variable names follow Bash's identifier rules. reg reload sources .bashrc explicitly.

Storage

Commands live in storage/reg.cmd beside reg.sh. New records use a version marker and escape backslashes, semicolons and newlines so steps round-trip without changing their text. Original records remain readable and removable; the old Reg version cannot read new records. Text already altered by an old registration cannot be recovered automatically.

File updates use a temporary file and rename, preserving the original if the write fails. Run modifying commands and the installer one at a time; concurrent writes are not supported.

Tests

Tests require Python 3, Bash and standard Unix tools; no Python packages are needed. They run commands and installations in temporary checkouts and homes.

python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -v

License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE.