The Bash cheat sheet that lists the dangerous flags side by side

The format is alternatives in one line

The style is consistent across the whole file. Each line is a command, then a comment saying what it does, and where a command has both a long and a short form, both are written with a pipe between them:

ls -a|--all               # List directories including hidden
ls -l -h|--human-readable # List directories in long form with human readable sizes

That is a small decision with a large effect. A cheat sheet that lists one spelling teaches you one spelling, and the one you forget to look up the next time. Listing both makes the sheet slightly longer but tells you that the choice exists, which is the information you were actually missing. The same convention appears on the destructive commands, where `rm -r|--recursive` and `rm -f|--force` are both shown, and it appears on the `mkdir -p|--parents` line and the `rsync` flags.

The permission tables are the reason to keep the file

Two tables cover file permissions, and they are the part of the document most likely to be worth printing. The first maps the numeric value to the read, write and execute bits, with the binary form alongside, so 7 is read, write and execute as 111, 6 is read and write as 110, down to 0 which is none. The second table gives the two default configurations that matter in practice: 6 for a user and 4 for group and others, which is the default file permissions, and 7 for the user and 5 for group and others, which is the default directory permissions. The note underneath explains the part that confuses people, that for a directory execute means you can enter it, which is why a directory needs the execute bit to be traversable even when its contents are not executable.

Redirection is shown in the order that actually matters

The section on standard output, standard error and standard input puts the redirections side by side, and one of the pairs is a classic trap:

echo "foo" > bar.txt       # Overwrite file with content
echo "foo" >> bar.txt      # Append to file with content

ls exists 1> stdout.txt    # Redirect the standard output to a file
ls noexist 2> stderror.txt # Redirect the standard error output to a file
ls 2>&1 > out.txt          # Redirect standard output and error to a file
ls > /dev/null             # Discard standard output and error

The `2>&1 > out.txt` line is worth pausing on, because the order of the two redirections decides what ends up in the file. The stderr descriptor is duplicated onto the current stdout, which at that moment is still the terminal, and only then is stdout sent to the file, so the error output goes to the screen rather than the file. Writing it the other way round, `> out.txt 2>&1`, sends both to the file. The cheat sheet shows the ordering without spelling out the consequence, so a reader who already knows why the order matters gets it, and a reader who does not will have to work it out.

History tricks in the first section

The document opens with command history, and the two entries there are the ones people forget. `!!` runs the last command, and `CTRL+r` searches the history, with the note to hit it multiple times to find multiple occurrences. Then there is the history expansion idiom that ties them together:

touch foo.sh
chmod +x !$   # !$ is the last argument of the last command i.e. foo.sh

That is two commands run as one, with the second one referring to the argument of the first. It is the kind of thing you either internalise or look up every single time, and having it in the first section means you see it. The `find` section at the end of the visible document follows the same pattern with `type`, `which` and `whereis` for locating a binary, and then `locate`, which is different in kind because it uses an index, is fast, and needs `updatedb` to refresh that index.

Directories, archives and the stack

The navigation section is the most complete part of the sheet. It covers `pwd` and the `ls` variants including the long form, human readable sizes and sorting by modification time, `stat` for a file and for a directory, and `tree` with the hidden and directories-only variants. The `cd` family is complete too, including `cd -` to return to the previous directory, and the `pushd` and `popd` pair for a directory stack. The creating and moving sections show `mkdir` with the parents flag and brace expansion for multiple directories, `mktemp` for a temporary file or directory, `cp` and `mv` for files, and `rsync` in four forms, with and without the archive flag, and in both directions between a local path and a remote host over ssh. The rsync entries are the subtle part, because the archive flag changes the behaviour of the copy rather than just its verbosity.

What the repository actually is

The repository is two files: a LICENSE and the README.md, with the MIT licence. There is no build system, no test suite, no script and no releases, and the primary language is not even determined because there is no code. The last push to the main branch was on 2026-10-05. That is worth stating plainly, because a repository that looks like software in a search result and turns out to be a document is a mild waste of time, and the reverse is also true: a single well-organised file that answers a question in ten seconds is a better artefact than a tool that needs installing. The topics attached to it are bash, shell, linux, unix, sh, tar and cheat-sheet, and the file is bilingual in practice since the original was written with some non-English sections.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt this cheat sheet as a lookup reference for the bash commands you use rarely and cannot remember, since the value is in the pairs rather than the sequences, the long and the short form, the copy and the move, the force and the non-force. Do not adopt it as a learning resource for the shell, because it is a list of invocations with no explanation of what the underlying tools do. Verify first that the commands are the ones you want on your system, since several entries in the finding section, such as locate, depend on an index being present, and note that the file is the only content in the repository, so there is no version history to consult if an entry changes.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. License: MIT
3. README
4. RehanSaeed/Bash-Cheat-Sheet on GitHub