McFly — Fly Through Your Shell History with Context-Aware Search

What it is

McFly replaces the default Ctrl-R reverse history search in bash, zsh, and fish with a context-aware, neural-ranked search. Instead of simple substring matching, McFly considers your current working directory, the exit status of previous commands, the time of day, and how recently you used each command to rank results.

McFly is for developers and sysadmins who run many commands across multiple projects and want their shell history to surface the right command in the right context.

The project is actively maintained with regular releases and a growing user community. Documentation covers common use cases, and the open-source nature means you can inspect the source code, contribute fixes, and adapt the tool to your specific requirements.

How it saves time or tokens

Default shell history search shows the most recent match regardless of context. If you run git push in 20 different repositories, Ctrl-R always shows the last one. McFly ranks the git push from your current directory higher because it understands context. This eliminates scrolling through irrelevant matches and reduces typo-driven re-runs.

How to use

1. Install McFly via brew, cargo, or your package manager.
2. Add the shell integration to your profile (bash, zsh, or fish).
3. Press Ctrl-R to search with McFly instead of the default history search.

Example

# Install McFly
brew install mcfly

# Add to .zshrc
eval "$(mcfly init zsh)"

# Add to .bashrc
eval "$(mcfly init bash)"

# Add to fish config
mcfly init fish | source

# Usage: press Ctrl-R and start typing
# McFly ranks results by:
# - Current directory context
# - Command exit status (successful commands rank higher)
# - Recency and frequency
# - Time of day patterns

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Common pitfalls

• McFly stores its database in ~/.mcfly/. If you use multiple machines, history is not shared automatically. Each machine maintains its own context database.
• The initial history import from .bash_history or .zsh_history lacks context metadata (directory, exit status). Context-aware ranking improves over time as McFly records new commands.
• McFly intercepts Ctrl-R. If you prefer the default behavior in some sessions, set MCFLY_DISABLE=1 before sourcing the init script.

Before adopting this tool, evaluate whether it fits your team's existing workflow. Read the official documentation thoroughly, and start with a small proof-of-concept rather than a full migration. Community forums, GitHub issues, and Stack Overflow are valuable resources when you encounter edge cases not covered in the documentation.