A modern, blazing-fast TUI file explorer written in Rust

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Fang is a terminal file explorer that feels like a real tool — not a toy. Syntax-highlighted previews, fuzzy search, Git operations, Makefile integration, and shell commands, all from the keyboard.

Features

3-panel layout	Sidebar tree · file list · preview — responsive to terminal width
Syntax highlighting	300+ languages via syntect, base16-ocean.dark theme
Fuzzy search	Real-time filtering with SkimMatcherV2 (/)
Git menu	status, fetch, pull, push, log, stash, diff — streamed output (g)
Makefile integration	Parse targets and run them with live output (m)
Shell commands	Run any command (with aliases) inside fang (:)
Terminal split	Open a command in a new pane — zellij, tmux, kitty, iTerm2… (;)
Shell in split	Open a native interactive shell in the current dir (s)
Embedded terminal	A real interactive PTY docked at the bottom — $SHELL, vim, htop… (t)
Open with system	Open file/dir with the default app or Finder (o)
Create files	New empty file or paste from clipboard — text, images, binary (n / N)
Window title	Terminal title updates to current path on every navigation
Header bar	Git branch + dev environment badges (Python, Go, Node, Rust)
Async everywhere	Non-blocking UI — previews and long commands run in background
Single binary	No runtime dependencies

Installation

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew tap theburrowhub/tap
brew install fang

Cargo

cargo install --git https://github.com/theburrowhub/fang

Binary download

Grab the latest pre-compiled binary from the Releases page:

Platform	Archive
macOS (Apple Silicon)	fang_VERSION_aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz
macOS (Intel)	fang_VERSION_x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz
Linux x86-64 (musl)	fang_VERSION_x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz
Linux ARM64 (musl)	fang_VERSION_aarch64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz
Windows x86-64	fang_VERSION_x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip

# macOS example
curl -L https://github.com/theburrowhub/fang/releases/latest/download/fang_VERSION_aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz \
  | tar -xz && sudo mv fang /usr/local/bin/

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/theburrowhub/fang
cd fang
cargo build --release
./target/release/fang

Usage

fang [directory]        # open in given directory (default: current)

Keybindings

Navigation

Key	Action
j / ↓	Move down
k / ↑	Move up
h / ←	Go to parent directory
l / → / Enter	Enter directory
Tab	Cycle panel focus (Files → Preview → Terminal)
p	Toggle preview
q / Ctrl+C	Quit

Search

Key	Action
/	Start fuzzy search
j / k	Navigate results
Enter	Open selected
Esc	Cancel

File operations

Key	Action
o	Open with system default app (macOS: open, Linux: xdg-open)
n	New empty file — type filename + Enter
N	New file from clipboard — pastes text, image, or binary

Preview

Key	Action
PgUp / PgDn	Scroll preview
j / k (when preview focused)	Scroll line by line

Git menu (g)

Opens a menu with the most common git operations. Output streams live into the preview panel.

Operation	Command
Status	git status
Fetch	git fetch
Fetch all (prune)	git fetch --all --prune
Pull	git pull
Pull (rebase)	git pull --rebase
Push	git push
Push (force-with-lease)	git push --force-with-lease
Push new branch	git push -u origin HEAD
Log (last 20)	git log --oneline -20
List branches	git branch -a
Stash	git stash
Stash pop	git stash pop
Diff (stat)	git diff --stat

Makefile integration (m)

When a Makefile is present, m opens a target picker. Select a target and press Enter to run it. Output streams into the preview panel.

Shell commands

Key	Behaviour
:	Run a command in the background — output shown in preview panel. Supports aliases (uses $SHELL -i). Interactive input (e.g. y/N prompts) is relayed to the process.
;	Open a command in a new terminal split (vertical pane). Detects: Zellij, tmux, kitty, WezTerm, Ghostty, iTerm2, Terminal.app, gnome-terminal, konsole, xterm.
s	Open a fresh interactive shell ($SHELL) in a new terminal split rooted at the current directory. Same detection as ;.

Embedded terminal (t)

t toggles a fully-interactive terminal docked along the bottom of the window, running your $SHELL in the current directory. Keystrokes go straight to the shell — vim, htop, tab-completion and colours all work. Press Ctrl+G to release focus back to the file list (the shell keeps running); press t again to hide it, or type exit to close it. The panel height is configurable in Settings (Ctrl+S).

Header bar

The top line shows contextual information about the current directory:

fang  ⎇ main  rs 1.75.0  node 20.11.0   ~/workspace/fang

Detected automatically: Git branch, Python venv version, Go, Node.js, Rust.

Architecture

src/
├── main.rs              # tokio event loop, terminal setup, action dispatch
├── app/
│   ├── state.rs         # AppState — single source of truth
│   ├── events.rs        # async Event enum
│   └── actions.rs       # Action enum, key→action mapping per mode
├── commands/
│   ├── make.rs          # async make execution with streaming
│   ├── git.rs           # async git operations
│   ├── shell.rs         # terminal split / shell detection
│   ├── open.rs          # system default app opener
│   ├── clipboard.rs     # clipboard read (text + images)
│   └── title.rs         # terminal window title via OSC escapes
├── fs/
│   ├── browser.rs       # directory loading, sorting
│   └── metadata.rs      # FileEntry, FileType, format_size
├── preview/
│   ├── text.rs          # syntect syntax highlighting (OnceLock)
│   ├── binary.rs        # hex dump
│   └── makefile.rs      # Makefile parser + preview
├── search/
│   └── fuzzy.rs         # SkimMatcherV2 filtering
├── terminal/
│   └── mod.rs           # embedded PTY + vt100 screen (portable-pty)
└── ui/
    ├── layout.rs        # responsive panel layout
    └── components/
        ├── header.rs    # top bar (git + dev envs)
        ├── file_list.rs # file browser panel
        ├── preview.rs   # preview panel
        ├── terminal_panel.rs # embedded terminal panel
        ├── footer.rs    # keybindings bar
        ├── make_modal.rs
        └── git_modal.rs

Key design decisions:

• No Arc<Mutex<AppState>> — state is owned exclusively by the event loop thread.
• OnceLock for syntect — SyntaxSet initialised once (~100 ms), reused for all previews.
• Async preview & commands — background tokio tasks send results back via mpsc::UnboundedSender<Event>.
• Panic-safe terminal — custom panic hook restores the terminal before printing.
• Blank-fill rendering — preview panel explicitly fills every cell to prevent stale terminal artefacts.

Contributing

# Fork, clone, create branch
git checkout -b feat/your-feature

# Run tests
cargo test

# Commit using conventional commits (used for auto-versioning)
git commit -m "feat: add your feature"
git commit -m "fix: fix a bug"
git commit -m "feat!: breaking change"

Commits on main following the Conventional Commits spec trigger automatic releases:

Prefix	Version bump
feat:	minor
fix:, perf:	patch
feat!: / BREAKING CHANGE	major
chore:, docs:, ci:	no release

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

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Made with ❤️ by The Burrow Hub