Levels 82–86: TUI Toolbelt

Level 82: ranger

A full-screen file manager built for the keyboard, vim-style keybindings and a live preview pane, turning multi-step file operations into a handful of keystrokes.

Command	What it does
`ranger`	Launch in the current directory
`ranger /var/log`	Launch in a specific directory
`jkhl`	Navigation keys: down / up / back a directory / into a directory
`S`	Drop to a real shell, already cd’d where ranger is browsing
`/`	Search forward for a file or directory by name

Level 83: cmus

A full TUI music player that never leaves the terminal: browse a library, queue tracks, control playback, no mouse or GUI window involved.

Command	What it does
`cmus`	Launch
`:add ~/Music`	Command mode: recursively add a library path
`c`	Play/pause
`b`	Skip to the next track
`cmus-remote -n`	Control a detached instance from a different terminal

Level 84: mpd & mpc

cmus is a player. MPD is a background daemon that owns your music library and does the actual playing, controlled by any of a dozen lightweight clients.

Command	What it does
`mpd`	Start the daemon
`mpc update`	Rescan the music directory for new files
`mpc add "Artist/Album/Track.flac"`	Add a track to the queue
`mpc play`	Start playback
`mpc status` (or `mpc current`)	Check what’s playing right now
`mpc random`	Toggle shuffle mode

Level 85: btop

The modern answer to top/htop: full mouse support, per-core graphs, disk and network I/O, and an interface that fits the ricing half of this job as much as the monitoring half.

Command	What it does
`btop`	Launch
`/`	Filter the process list live
`k`	Kill the selected process (opens a signal picker)
`p`	Cycle between preset layouts
`btop -p 2`	Launch straight into a specific preset

Level 86: fzf

Every tool in this tier replaces a whole workflow. fzf replaces a single reflex: type a few loose characters instead of remembering an exact name, and pick from a live fuzzy-filtered list.

git branch | fzf                              # fuzzy-pick from any piped list
# Ctrl-R: fuzzy search shell history (replaces the plain reverse-search)
# Ctrl-T: fuzzy-insert a file path at the cursor
fzf --preview 'cat {}'                        # live preview of the highlighted item
ps aux | fzf | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill  # fuzzy-pick a process to kill

Finish this tier and move on to Modern TUI Tools: the newer generation of these same ideas, plus dedicated TUI dashboards for git and Docker.