Atuin — Magical Shell History with Sync and Search

What Atuin Does

• Rich history — cwd, exit code, duration, session, hostname
• Search UI — Ctrl+R opens fuzzy picker with filters
• End-to-end encrypted sync — across machines
• Stats — top commands, avg duration, failure rate
• Filter by — directory, session, exit code
• Replaces Ctrl+R — native shell history integration
• Import — bash, zsh, fish, nushell, resh

Architecture

Local SQLite database at ~/.local/share/atuin/history.db. Shell hook captures each command pre/post execution. Optional sync server stores encrypted blobs (client has the key, server cannot read plaintext).

Self-Hosting

Optional sync server is open source:

docker run -d -p 8888:8888 -v atuin-data:/config ghcr.io/atuinsh/atuin server start
# Or via systemd: atuin server start

Client config points to your server with sync_address in ~/.config/atuin/config.toml.

Key Features

• Full context per command
• E2E encrypted sync
• Fuzzy interactive picker
• Directory-scoped history
• Session filtering
• Import from other history tools
• Stats and insights
• Self-hostable server

Comparison

FAQ

Q: What about privacy? A: Atuin stores data locally by default. When sync is enabled, data is encrypted with a client key before upload, so the server never sees plaintext. Completely self-sovereign.

Q: Does it affect shell startup speed? A: The Rust implementation is fast, and hooks only fire on command execution — startup impact is imperceptible.

Q: Can I exclude certain commands? A: Yes. Configure the history_filter regex array (for example, commands containing passwords) to avoid recording them.

Sources & Credits

• Docs: https://atuin.sh
• GitHub: https://github.com/atuinsh/atuin
• License: MIT