* > +

24 April 2026

Updated: 06 May 2026

Run this presentation using:

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http get https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nabeelvalley/docs/refs/heads/master/src/content/talks/2026/24-04/the-power-of-small-tools.md
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  | sed '1,/^--- presenterm-start/d'
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  | str trim
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  | save presentation.md --force
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cat presentation.md
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  | split row "---"
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  | str trim | parse --regex '`(?<path>.+)`\n\n```(?<lang>\w+)\n(?<content>(.|\n)+)```'
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  | each {|i| echo $i.content | save $i.path --force}
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presenterm presentation.md

--- presenterm-start

options: end_slide_shorthand: true

* > +, Or, the Multiplicative Power of Small Tools

A mindset for working more efficiently

Agenda

Ideas First
A (less-technical) Unix Philosophy
Identify Accidental Complexity
How Do We Get Faster?
Let’s Write Some Code
More Ideas

Ideas First

The first bit of this is all a bit abstract

Try to be open to the ideas without thinking too much about application right now, we’ll get to that later

A (less-technical) Unix Philosophy

An emergent set of principles within the Unix ecosystem¹ with a personal spin

Technology should:

Do one thing. Do it well.
Work well together
Fail early and allow for iteratation
Allow for disposability

Identify Accidental Complexity

Opportunities to work more effectively

The work around your work
Things that you do frequently
Things that are slow
Things that don’t play well together

It’s a Numbers Game

A little faster each day adds up pretty quick
Composition helps small solutions solve big problems really quickly

How Do We Get Faster?

The terminal, unfortunately

Shell commands are:

Fast
Repeatable
Composable

UI’s are generally none of these things

Let’s Write Some Code

We have a weekly team presentation we want to assign a section to each team member

Some Scripts to Do the Things

We’ll make small generalized tools instead of one big one

Composing the Tools

Do the entire workflow at once

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cat presentation.md
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| node extract-headings.js
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| node assign-team.js
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| node create-tasks.js "My Task Prefix"

Greater than the Sum of Their Parts

Small tools can be composed in more complex ways

Can you assign these tasks on the fly?

Buy bread
Go to the farmer’s market
Reply to emails
Drop PROD database

Tip: If you’re using helix, this is :| node assign-team.js

More Ideas

Composition with Nushell

Create all the files listed in this presentation

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 cat presentation.md
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  | split row "---"
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  | str trim | parse --regex '`(?<path>.+)`\n\n```(?<lang>\w+)\n(?<content>(.|\n)+)```'
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  | each {|i| echo $i.content | save $i.path --force}

JS Implementations

extract-headings.js

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import { readFileSync } from 'fs';
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readFileSync(0, 'utf-8').split('\n')
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  .filter(l => l.startsWith('## '))
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  .forEach(l => console.log(l.slice(3)))

assign-team.js

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import { execSync } from 'child_process';
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import { readFileSync } from 'fs';
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const members = [
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  'Alice',
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  'Bob',
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  'Charles'
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]
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readFileSync(0, 'utf-8')
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  .trim()
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  .split('\n')
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  .forEach((t, i) => console.log(`${t}:${members[i%members.length]}`))

create-tasks.js

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import { execSync } from 'child_process';
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import { readFileSync } from 'fs';
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if (process.argv.length < 3) {
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  throw new Error("Prefix must be provided")
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}
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const prefix = process.argv[process.argv.length - 1]
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// this could be the Azure Devops CLI or GitHub CLI or anything really
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const createTask = (task, assignee) => console.log(
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  execSync(`gh issue create --body "${prefix}" --title "${prefix}: ${task}" --label "${assignee}" --label Presentation`).toString().trim()
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)
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readFileSync(0, 'utf-8')
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  .trim()
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  .split('\n')
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  .forEach(t => createTask(...t.split(':')))

Alternative Implementations

tools.nu

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let members = [Alice, Bob, Charles];
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let prefix = "My task title"
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def "extract-headings" [] {
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  $in | grep -e '^## ' | cut -c 4- | lines
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}
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def "assign-tasks" [] {
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  $in | enumerate | each {|i|
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    let assignee = $members | get ($i.index mod 3)
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    ({
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      title: $i.item,
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      assignee: $assignee,
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    })
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  }
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}
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def "create-task" [] {
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  print "Enter task prefix:"
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  let prefix = (input)
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  $in
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  | par-each { gh issue create --title $"($prefix) - ($in.title)" --body $prefix --label $in.assignee --label Presentation }
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}

assign-team.cs

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string[] team = {"Alice", "Bob", "Charles"};
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string? line = null;
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int count = 0;
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while((line = Console.In.ReadLine()) != null)
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{
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  var assigned = team[count % team.Length];
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  Console.WriteLine($"{line}:{assigned}");
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  count ++;
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}

extract-headings.cs

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string? line = null;
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while((line = Console.In.ReadLine()) != null)
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{
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  if (line.StartsWith("## ")) {
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    Console.WriteLine(line.Substring(3));
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  }
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}

Additional Resources

Footnotes

Wikipedia - Unix Philosophy ↩