Ultimate Cheatsheet for Developers
Curated list of useful resources and cheatsheets for web developers
View the Project on GitHub zlatanstajic/ultimate-cheatsheet-for-developers
Ultimate Cheatsheet for Developers
Making everyday development easier.
A curated collection of developer cheatsheets and resource lists written in plain Markdown. The same content is published as a Jekyll site on GitHub Pages, searched in the browser through a prebuilt index, read from the terminal through the ucheat CLI, and exported offline as print-ready HTML or a VS Code snippet bundle.
Table of Contents
- Features
- Tech Stack
- Cheatsheets
- Install
- Usage
- Content Metadata
- Testing
- Continuous Integration
- Open Graph Image
- Contributors
- Contributing
- License
Features
- Shell cheatsheets: Command references for seventeen tools, from git and Docker to jq, tmux, and systemctl.
- Knowledgebase lists: Curated collections of repositories, learning sources, tools, books, and Linux applications.
- Plain Markdown source: Every page is a Markdown file with no build step required to read or edit it.
- Browser search: A prebuilt lunr index powers client-side search that links straight to the matching page section.
- Terminal CLI: The
ucheatcommand renders any section in the terminal with fuzzy section matching. - Freshness metadata: Each content page attests when it was last reviewed and which tool version it was verified against.
- Print export: A generated HTML tree turns each section into its own card for clean per-section page breaks when printing.
- Snippet export: Commented shell commands are extracted into a VS Code snippet bundle with placeholder tabstops.
- Validation pipeline: Lint, link, and spell checks run on every push, every pull request, and every local commit.
- Generated contributor list: The contributor table is rebuilt from
git shortlogwith no GitHub token or network access.
Tech Stack
- Content: Markdown with YAML frontmatter
- Site: Jekyll with
jekyll-theme-minimaland kramdown, published on GitHub Pages - Search: A lunr index built at commit time, queried by
assets/js/search.jsin the browser - CLI: Node.js 20 or newer with
fuse.js,marked, andmarked-terminal - Quality: remark-cli, markdown-link-check, cspell, Husky, and lint-staged
- Exports: A hand-rolled mdast-to-HTML serializer and a VS Code snippet builder
- Assets: Python 3 with Pillow for the Open Graph image
Cheatsheets
Knowledgebase
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| GitHub Repos | Curated list of useful GitHub repositories for web development. |
| Learning Sources | Useful learning sources and documentation for web development. |
| Web Development Tools | Handy tools and utilities for web developers. |
| Books To Read | Recommended books for software developers. |
| Linux Apps | Recommended Linux applications for developers. |
Shell
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Composer | Dependency management for PHP projects. |
| cURL | Command-line tool for transferring data with URLs. |
| Git | Version control system for tracking code changes. |
| Git Crypt | Transparent file encryption for version control. |
| Linux | Useful Linux commands and tips. |
| MySQL | Commands for MySQL database management. |
| PostgreSQL | PostgreSQL relational database management. |
| Node | Node.js runtime and command-line usage. |
| npm | Node.js package manager commands. |
| Python | Python programming language and package management. |
| Docker | Container platform for building and running applications. |
| Redis | In-memory data structure store for caching and data management. |
| PHP | PHP command-line usage and scripting. |
| SSH | Secure remote login and command execution. |
| jq | Command-line JSON processor. |
| tmux | Terminal multiplexer for sessions, windows, and panes. |
| systemctl | Control the systemd system and service manager. |
Each folder also has its own index page: knowledgebase/README.md and shell/README.md. When a page is added or renamed, both this table and the folder index need the new link.
Install
Reading the cheatsheets needs nothing installed — open any Markdown file on GitHub or browse the published site. The steps below set up the validation and export tooling for contributors.
Requirements
- Node.js 20 or newer with npm, for the validation tooling, the CLI, and the exports
- Python 3 with Pillow, only to regenerate the Open Graph image
- Ruby with Jekyll, only to preview the published site locally; GitHub Pages builds it on push
Local Setup
Clone the repository and install the tooling:
git clone https://github.com/zlatanstajic/ultimate-cheatsheet-for-developers.git
cd ultimate-cheatsheet-for-developers
npm install
npm install runs the prepare script, which installs the Husky pre-commit hook. Verify the setup with:
npm test
There is no application to start and no environment file to create.
Usage
Website
The site is published from master to https://zlatanstajic.github.io/ultimate-cheatsheet-for-developers by GitHub Pages, using the settings in _config.yml. Jekyll renders every Markdown page with the theme’s default layout and excludes bin/, scripts/, and the CLI index from the site.
Search
search.html queries a prebuilt lunr index and links each result to the matching page and section anchor. The index lives in assets/search-index.json and is regenerated by the pre-commit hook; to rebuild it by hand, run:
npm run build:index
CLI
bin/ucheat.mjs renders cheatsheet sections in the terminal. From a clone:
# Show usage and the list of available tools
node bin/ucheat.mjs --help
# List the sections of a tool's cheatsheet
node bin/ucheat.mjs docker
# Render a section (fuzzy-matched, so "git stsh" works too)
node bin/ucheat.mjs git stash
The same entry point is packaged for npm as ucheat, so a published release is callable as npx ucheat git stash. It exits 0 when a section was rendered, 1 when nothing matched, and 2 when the query was ambiguous, in which case it prints the closest candidates instead of guessing.
The CLI reads the prebuilt index at assets/cli-index.json and never parses Markdown at runtime. Editing anything under shell/, knowledgebase/, or this README changes that index:
npm run build:cli-index
Commit the regenerated assets/cli-index.json alongside the content change — npm test fails on any drift.
Exports
To take the cheatsheets offline, generate the export artifacts locally:
npm run build:print # print-optimized HTML pages in dist/print/
npm run build:snippets # VS Code snippet bundle in dist/snippets/cheatsheets.code-snippets
npm run build:export # both of the above
Output lands in the git-ignored dist/ folder. Open any page from dist/print/ in a browser and print to PDF for a paper copy, one card per section. Place cheatsheets.code-snippets in your VS Code snippets folder to get the shell commands as editor snippets.
The snippet builder has a self-test that asserts against real cheatsheet content and writes nothing:
node scripts/build-snippets.mjs --check
Content Metadata
Every page under shell/ and knowledgebase/ opens with a YAML frontmatter block:
---
last_reviewed: 2026-03-27
tested_on: git 2.43
---
| Key | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
last_reviewed |
Yes | ISO date (YYYY-MM-DD) on which the page content was last verified. A manual attestation; nothing derives it from git. |
tested_on |
No | Tool version the commands were verified against. A string, or a YAML list when several versions were checked. |
Two report-only scripts read this metadata. Both always exit zero and neither is part of npm test or the pre-commit hook:
npm run check:freshness # writes assets/freshness-badge.json, the badge above
npm run check:drift # lists pages edited after their attested review date
The freshness badge counts pages whose last_reviewed is older than 183 days, plus pages with a missing or invalid date. The two folder index pages are excluded from the count. Full details are in CONTRIBUTING.md.
Testing
Run the complete validation suite:
npm test
That runs four gates in order:
| Script | Tool | Config | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
lint:md |
remark-cli | .remarkrc.js |
Markdown lint; --frail treats warnings as errors |
check:links |
markdown-link-check | .mlc-config.json |
External and relative link validity |
spell |
cspell | .cspell.json |
Spell check against the project word list |
check:cli-index |
Node | — | Rebuilds assets/cli-index.json and fails on uncommitted drift |
Each script globs every *.md outside node_modules, so there is no single-file runner. To check one file, call the tool directly:
npx remark --quiet --frail shell/git.md
npx cspell shell/git.md
npx markdown-link-check --config .mlc-config.json shell/git.md
New command flags, tool names, and proper nouns will fail the spell check. Add them to the words array in .cspell.json rather than rewording the content.
Continuous Integration
Four GitHub Actions workflows run against this repository:
| Workflow | Trigger | What it does |
|---|---|---|
ci.yml |
Push and pull requests to master |
Runs npm ci and npm test on the current Node LTS |
check-freshness.yml |
Content pushes, Mondays 06:00 UTC, manual | Rebuilds assets/freshness-badge.json and commits any change |
build-leaderboard.yml |
Mondays 06:30 UTC, manual | Rebuilds the Contributors list and commits any change |
release-export.yml |
Manual, takes a tag input |
Builds both exports and attaches them to a GitHub Release |
The two committing workflows push to master as github-actions[bot] with [skip ci], only when the generated file actually changed, and share one serialized concurrency group so they never race on the push.
Pre-commit Hook
The repository includes a Husky hook at .husky/pre-commit. It runs lint-staged, applying the lint, spell, and link checks to staged *.md files, then rebuilds the search index and stages assets/search-index.json if it changed. The hook is installed by npm’s prepare script when dependencies are installed. To install or refresh it explicitly, run:
npm run prepare
A failing check aborts the commit. Run npm test directly to reproduce the failure. Bypass the hook for a single commit only when necessary with:
git commit --no-verify
Open Graph Image
The social preview at assets/img/og-image.png is generated, not hand-drawn. Regenerate it after changing the project name or tagline:
python3 scripts/gen-og-image.py
The script requires Pillow and a bold DejaVu or Liberation TrueType font. It contains no randomness and no timestamps, so the same inputs produce a byte-identical PNG on every run; if no suitable font is installed it fails loudly rather than falling back to a low-resolution default.
Contributors
Generated from git shortlog — regenerate with npm run leaderboard.
- Zlatan Stajic — 13 commits
Contributing
Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to propose a change, add a page, and keep the frontmatter and generated artifacts in sync.
License
This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.