• Sniper
  • Getting started
    • Installation
    • Usage
    • Configuration
    • Templates
  • Integrations
    • Shell completions
    • Alfred workflow
    • Model Context Protocol

Snippet management tool for the terminal.

This software is classified as blabware – designed primarily for a talk (and here are the slides) or a blog post. Even though I daily drive it, it's not advertised to wider public and it follows my personal workflow. That said, if you find it useful and want to fix some bugs, let me know!

• Via Homebrew: brew install indoorvivants/tap/sniper

• Via Coursier: cs install sniper --channel https://cs.indoorvivants.com/i.json

• Via GitHub releases: download the latest binary for your platform

• From source: clone the repository and run make install.

  Requires Scala CLI and Clang to be installed

• Create a new snippet with sniper new – this will output the path to the snippet folder to STDOUT.

  Recommended usage: cd $(sniper new) && vim ., where you can replace vim with your favorite editor

• Open existing snippet with sniper open. Same deal as with new, it outputs the path to the snippet folder.

  Recommended usage: cd $(sniper open) && vim .

• Code search: sniper search-code. Note: currently the search results aren't great

• Synchronise code search index with snippets database: sniper sync.

  It's best to run this as a cron job.

• Delete a snippet with sniper delete. It will ask for confirmation before deleting the snippet folder

• Test your templates with sniper test-template

Sniper stores its config in a TOML file. Find its location by running sniper print-config -l.

Define your own templates for snippets in the config file like so:

[[templates]]
name = 'scala3'
files = [{ name = "main.scala", content = """
//> using scala 3.7

@main def hello=
   println(42)
""" }]
references = ["scalafmt", "gitignore"]
test = ["scala-cli", "run", "."]

The references field allows you to define named files that you can share across templates:

[[globalFiles]]
label = "scalafmt"
filename = ".scalafmt.conf"
content = """
version = "3.9.6"
runner.dialect = scala3
rewrite.scala3.insertEndMarkerMinLines = 5
rewrite.scala3.removeOptionalBraces = true
rewrite.scala3.convertToNewSyntax = true"""

[[globalFiles]]
label = "gitignore"
filename = ".gitignore"
content = """
*.class
*.tasty
.metals
.bloop
.bsp
.scala-build
.sbt"""

• Bash: sniper completion bash > completions.bash && source completions.bash
• ZSH: sniper completion zsh > completions.zsh && source completions.zsh

https://www.alfredapp.com/

sniper alfred workflow > hello.alfredworkflow

Then open that hello.alfredworkflow file to add it to your installation

Sniper comes with a built-in MCP server, using STDIO transport.

Launch it with sniper mcp, and use this command to add configuration to your favourite MCP-enabled tool.