bash-standards

Bash style and standards

• String Manipulation: Use Bash's built-in string manipulation features (e.g., parameter expansion, substring extraction) instead of external commands like sed or awk when possible.
• File Handling: Use Bash's built-in file handling commands (e.g., read, write, mkdir, rm) for basic operations. For more complex operations, consider find with -exec or xargs.
• Looping: Use for loops for iterating over lists of items and while loops for conditional execution.
• Conditional Statements: Use if, elif, and else statements for branching logic. Prefer [[ ]] over [ ] for string comparisons.
• Exit Early: Use return or exit to exit the script as soon as an error is detected.
• Always quote variables to prevent word splitting and globbing issues.
• Avoid using eval as it can introduce security vulnerabilities and make the code difficult to understand.
• Use $(command) instead of backticks for command substitution.
• Minimize the use of global variables to avoid naming conflicts and unexpected side effects. Use local within functions.
• Always check the return values of commands to handle errors gracefully. Use set -e to exit on errors automatically.
• Comments should explain why the code is doing something, not what the code is doing.
• While powerful, long pipelines can become unreadable. Consider breaking down complex operations into smaller, more manageable steps with intermediate variables.
• Use temporary files to store intermediate data during script execution. Use mktemp to create unique temporary file names and remove them when finished. They should be created under /tmp or another location if needed.
• Use printf for formatted output instead of echo, as it is generally faster and more portable.

Bash command rules

• Never use echo "---" or similar echo statements containing sequences of dashes (---, ----, etc.) as success markers or separators in bash commands. These trigger security warnings in Claude Code. Instead, use plain words like echo "Done" or echo "OK".