abaran

abaran is a terminal tool that wraps the Helix text editor with the everyday extras a developer needs but Helix does not yet provide on its own: a file tree for browsing a project, a git interface for staging and committing changes, and a find-and-replace tool that works across an entire project. All three live inside the same terminal window, so there is no need to run tmux or juggle separate terminal tabs to switch between editing, git, and search.

The name comes from a Bengali word meaning a shroud or covering, reflecting how the tool wraps around Helix rather than replacing it. You navigate a gitignore-aware file tree, and pressing Enter on a file opens it directly inside Helix, running invisibly underneath through a pseudo-terminal connection with no noticeable delay. A keyboard shortcut switches into a git tool called gitui for handling commits and branches, and another switches into a tool called serpl for searching and replacing text across many files at once. The project is explicitly described as a stopgap: once Helix eventually ships its own plugin system covering these same needs, the maintainer expects abaran to become unnecessary.

Installation is a single command that downloads a prebuilt binary for 64-bit or ARM Linux, or the project can be built from source using Rust's Cargo tool if preferred. It only runs on Linux. Helix itself is required, while the git and find-and-replace tools are optional extras that add functionality if installed.

Notably, the author states the entire codebase was written by an AI coding tool over roughly fifteen dollars in API usage, without the author personally knowing the Rust programming language it is written in. Because of this, the project does not accept outside code contributions, though bug reports and feature requests through GitHub issues are welcome.