try - fresh directories for every vibe

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Your experiments deserve a home. 🏠

For everyone who constantly creates new projects for little experiments, a one-file Ruby script to quickly manage and navigate to keep them somewhat organized

Ever find yourself with 50 directories named test, test2, new-test, actually-working-test, scattered across your filesystem? Or worse, just coding in /tmp and losing everything?

try is here for your beautifully chaotic mind.

What it does

!Fuzzy Search Demo

View interactive version on asciinema

Instantly navigate through all your experiment directories with:

Installation

RubyGems (Recommended)

gem install try-cli

Then add to your shell:

# Bash/Zsh - add to .zshrc or .bashrc
eval "$(try init)"
# Fish - add to config.fish eval (try init | string collect)

Quick Start (Manual)

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tobi/try/refs/heads/main/try.rb > ~/.local/try.rb
# Make "try" executable so it can be run directly chmod +x ~/.local/try.rb
# Add to your shell (bash/zsh) echo 'eval "$(ruby ~/.local/try.rb init ~/src/tries)"' >> ~/.zshrc
# for fish shell users echo 'eval (~/.local/try.rb init ~/src/tries | string collect)' >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish

The Problem

You're learning Redis. You create /tmp/redis-test. Then ~/Desktop/redis-actually. Then ~/projects/testing-redis-again. Three weeks later you can't find that brilliant connection pooling solution you wrote at 2am.

The Solution

All your experiments in one place, with instant fuzzy search:

$ try pool
→ 2025-08-14-redis-connection-pool    2h, 18.5   2025-08-03-thread-pool              3d, 12.1   2025-07-22-db-pooling               2w, 8.3   + Create new: pool

Type, arrow down, enter. You're there.

Features

🎯 Smart Fuzzy Search

Not just substring matching - it's smart:

⏰ Time-Aware

🎨 Pretty TUI

📁 Organized Chaos

Shell Integration

  # default is ~/src/tries
  eval "$(~/.local/try.rb init)"   # or pick a path   eval "$(~/.local/try.rb init ~/src/tries)"

  eval (~/.local/try.rb init | string collect)
  # or pick a path   eval (~/.local/try.rb init ~/src/tries | string collect)

Notes:

Usage

try                                          # Browse all experiments
try redis                                    # Jump to redis experiment or create new try new api                                  # Start with "2025-08-17-new-api" try . [name]                                   # Create a dated worktree dir for current repo try ./path/to/repo [name]                      # Use another repo as the worktree source try worktree dir [name]                        # Same as above, explicit CLI form try clone https://github.com/user/repo.git  # Clone repo into date-prefixed directory try https://github.com/user/repo.git        # Shorthand for clone (same as above) try --help                                   # See all options

Notes on worktrees (try . / try worktree dir):

Git Repository Cloning

try can automatically clone git repositories into properly named experiment directories:

# Clone with auto-generated directory name
try clone https://github.com/tobi/try.git # Creates: 2025-08-27-tobi-try
# Clone with custom name try clone https://github.com/tobi/try.git my-fork # Creates: my-fork
# Shorthand syntax (no need to type 'clone') try https://github.com/tobi/try.git # Creates: 2025-08-27-tobi-try

Supported git URI formats:

The .git suffix is automatically removed from URLs when generating directory names.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Configuration

Set TRY_PATH to change where experiments are stored:

export TRY_PATH=~/code/sketches

Default: ~/src/tries

Nix

Quick start

nix run github:tobi/try
nix run github:tobi/try -- --help nix run github:tobi/try init ~/my-tries

Home Manager

{
  inputs.try.url = "github:tobi/try";
  imports = [ inputs.try.homeManagerModules.default ];
  programs.try = {     enable = true;     path = "~/experiments";  # optional, defaults to ~/src/tries   }; }

Homebrew

Quick start

brew tap tobi/try https://github.com/tobi/try
brew install try

After installation, add to your shell:

  # default is ~/src/tries
  eval "$(try init)"   # or pick a path   eval "$(try init ~/src/tries)"

  eval "(try init | string collect)"
  # or pick a path   eval "(try init ~/src/tries | string collect)"

Why Ruby?

The Philosophy

Your brain doesn't work in neat folders. You have ideas, you try things, you context-switch like a caffeinated squirrel. This tool embraces that.

Every experiment gets a home. Every home is instantly findable. Your 2am coding sessions are no longer lost to the void.

FAQ

Q: Why not just use cd and ls? A: Because you have 200 directories and can't remember if you called it test-redis, redis-test, or new-redis-thing.

Q: Why not use fzf? A: fzf is great for files. This is specifically for project directories, with time-awareness and auto-creation built in.

Q: Can I use this for real projects? A: You can, but it's designed for experiments. Real projects deserve real names in real locations.

Q: What if I have thousands of experiments? A: First, welcome to the club. Second, it handles it fine - the scoring algorithm ensures relevant stuff stays on top.

Contributing

It's one file. If you want to change something, just edit it. Send a PR if you think others would like it too.

License

MIT - Do whatever you want with it.

Built for developers with ADHD by developers with ADHD.

Your experiments deserve a home. 🏠