<p>This is a small side project I built while learning more about Unix-style CLI design</p>
<p>and streaming I/O in Go.</p>
<p>It’s not a new idea, and it’s not meant to replace tools like grep or awk.</p>
<p>The goal was simply to reduce boilerplate for a few workflows I kept repeating.</p>
<h2>The problem</h2>
<p>In day-to-day work, I often need quick answers from log files:</p>
<ul>
<li>Are there any errors?</li>
<li>How many times did this message appear?</li>
<li>What is the most common log line?</li>
</ul>
<p>These are all solvable with grep and awk, but I found myself rewriting</p>
<p>small scripts again and again. The scripts worked, but they added friction</p>
<p>to otherwise simple tasks.</p>
<h2>The idea</h2>
<p>Instead of optimizing the scripts, I decided to hard-code these patterns</p>
<p>into a small CLI tool.</p>
<p>The result is logx — a deliberately boring command-line tool that:</p>
<ul>
<li>filters log lines by substring matching</li>
<li>works on files or standard input</li>
<li>provides predictable exit codes for scripting</li>
<li>includes simple frequency analysis</li>
</ul>
<p>The goal was not flexibility, but consistency.</p>
<h2>Design choices</h2>
<p>A few deliberate constraints shaped the tool:</p>
<ul>
<li>Streaming only — files are processed line by line</li>
<li>Standard library only — no external dependencies</li>
<li>No configuration files or plugins</li>
<li>Deterministic output ordering</li>
</ul>
<p>These constraints keep the code easy to read, audit, and reason about.</p>
<h2>What I learned</h2>
<p>The biggest takeaway was that most tools don’t need to be clever.</p>
<p>They need to be predictable.</p>
<p>Writing boring code made testing, debugging, and documenting much easier.</p>
<p>It also forced me to think carefully about defaults, exit codes,</p>
<p>and how the tool behaves in shell scripts.</p>
<h2>Project</h2>
<p>The project is open source and available here:</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/aman179102/logx" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://github.com/aman179102/logx</a></p>
<p>Feedback is welcome.</p>


Aman Kumar

logx is a small open-source CLI tool written in Go for analyzing log files via substring filtering and frequency analysis. Built as a learning project around Unix-style CLI design and streaming I/O, it deliberately avoids external dependencies, configuration files, and clever abstractions. The tool processes input line by line, provides predictable exit codes for scripting, and prioritizes consistency over flexibility. The key takeaway: boring, predictable tools are easier to test, debug, and document than clever ones.

Building a Small, Boring Unix-Style CLI in Go