Learn the terminal by using it
Four trainers for the tools most people only ever half-learn. Each one is a working simulator of the real program in your browser, wrapped in a graded course – so you learn Ctrl-b % by pressing it, not by reading a table of it.
No install, no server, no account. Everything runs in the page; your progress lives in your browser's localStorage and is never sent anywhere.
The four trainers
tmux trainer
tmux.cli.coachtmux's sessions, windows and panes – splitting, navigating, resizing, layouts, copy mode, the command prompt. Splits build a real layout tree and the panes run a small fake shell, so there is something to look at and something to copy.
key tables from tmux 3.7c · ends with your own .tmux.conf
vim trainer
vim.cli.coachModal editing as a grammar: operators times motions, text objects, counts, registers, macros, marks, : commands, windows. A switch runs the simulator as vim or as neovim, and every command is tagged vi / vim / nvim so you know what still works on a bare box.
commands from vim 9.2 and neovim 0.12 · ends with your own vimrc
mutt trainer
mutt.cli.coachThe mutt mail client: index, pager, compose screen and folder browser over a fake mailbox. Reading and flagging, replying, saving and copying, limits and patterns, threads as units, tagging, aliases, and signed or encrypted mail against a fixture keyring.
key tables from mutt 2.2.15 · ends with your own muttrc
gpg trainer
gpg.cli.coachGnuPG end to end: generating a key, encrypting and decrypting, signing and verifying, subkeys and an offline primary, identities, trust and keyservers, expiry and revocation, a virtual OpenPGP smartcard, and gpg-agent as your SSH agent.
commands from GnuPG 2.4.9 · the behaviour is real, the crypto is simulated
How they work
- Teach first, then test. Every card names the keys as finger movements, says what happens and why you would reach for it, names the alternatives and the one gotcha – then hands you a live simulator. The try box goes green when you actually do it.
- Graded exercises, not multiple choice. The simulated tool is complete enough that a lesson can check the end state instead of the keystrokes, so "make the screen look like this" is a question the app can mark. Exercises range from meeting a key once, through reaching an end state by any route and repairing a fixture that starts broken, to no-hint recall from memory.
- Review on a schedule. Every binding carries a strength score and a next-review date on an expanding ladder – 1, 2, 4, 7, 14, 30 days. Get it right and it moves up a rung; miss it and it drops two and comes back in the same session. Getting something right once is not mastery: it has to survive a no-hint recall on a later calendar day.
- A reference that knows what you know. Every default binding or command, with the real function behind it, filterable – and your own recall strength shown per key. Plus a sandbox where nothing is graded.
- Defaults taken from the source. Each trainer's key table was transcribed from its tool's own source at a pinned version, not from blog posts – which is why the trainers contradict the internet on things like
prefix r,Y,dand gpg's default algorithm, and have an exercise for each one. - Nothing to sign up for. No accounts, no tracking, no streaks, no XP, no badges. Clear your browser storage and the progress is gone.
Built by Marvin Winkler.