JPKCom DB

Cheat Sheets — Tips & Tricks

Knacks for the Cheat Sheets: words and phrases, searching all sheets, keyboard shortcuts, deep links to sections, pitfalls, and matching JPKCom tools.

Back to the overview: Cheat Sheets · Open the tool live: www.jpkc.com/tools/cheatsheet/

The manual explains every feature, the examples show the workflows. This page is about the surrounding stuff: how to find things faster, which quirk trips people up, and how the sheets play with the other JPKCom tools.

Don't confuse the two search fields

The most common stumbling block: there are two search fields, and they do different things.

  • The field inside the Cheat Sheet dropdown (Search cheat sheets...) only searches sheet names — i.e. "which tool". It gets you from "I need something about containers" to the Docker sheet.
  • The Search field in the controls card searches the commands of the currently loaded sheet — i.e. "which command". It gets you from within Docker to docker exec.
  • With the Search all cheat sheets switch below it, the same field searches the commands of all 220 sheets — i.e. "which command in which tool". It gets you from "something about open ports" to ss -tlnp without knowing the tool up front.

If you know the tool, the two-step route is fastest: pick the sheet first, then filter the command. If you only know the task, switch on the search across all sheets — or, when the current sheet comes up empty, click Search all cheat sheets right in the No commands in this cheat sheet match your search. card.

Search faster

  • The command search also matches descriptions. It searches an entry's command, description, and example. So you don't need to know the exact command — a keyword from the explanation (undo, compress, permission) often gets you there just as well. The yellow highlighting shows what matched.
  • More words, fewer hits. Every additional word has to appear too — undo last is narrower than undo. Word order doesn't matter.
  • Phrases in quotes. "dry run" only finds entries with exactly that word sequence; without quotes, dry run also hits every --dry-run and returns noticeably more. Conversely, dry-run targets the option itself.
  • Partial words are enough. Each word is matched as a substring: rev finds revert, compr finds compress. Typos, on the other hand, aren't forgiven.
  • / and Esc instead of the mouse. / jumps into the search field from anywhere on the page, Esc clears it again. That way you can look up several commands in a row without taking your hands off the keyboard.
  • Keyboard first in the dropdown. Open the Cheat Sheet dropdown, type two or three letters, and press Enter — without an arrow key, that loads the first match. Up/Down arrows pick a different one, Escape closes the dropdown again.
  • The × button only resets the command search, not the sheet. Handy when you're checking several commands in a row within the same sheet.
  • Categories as a map. When you don't know the tool name, the grouping helps: backup tools sit together under Remote & Backup, text tools under Text Processing — good for discovering alternatives (restic vs. borgbackup, grep and its relatives).
  • Bookmark your regulars. Every sheet has its own URL via the hash (#git, #docker, #nginx). A browser bookmark straight on the hash link drops you into the right sheet with one click.
  • Link the section, not just the sheet. The link button in each section card's header copies a URL like …/tools/cheatsheet/#ssh/port-forwarding-tunneling. Instead of "go check the Cheat Sheets, somewhere under SSH," the other person lands right on the tunnels.
  • Back button between sheets. Every sheet switch creates its own history entry — jump from git to gh and the browser's back button takes you back. Section jumps via the Section dropdown don't go into your history, though, so it stays tidy.

Pitfalls from practice

  • Copied commands contain placeholders verbatim. <url>, <name>, <branch> are copied exactly as written — they're meant as a fill-in template, not a runnable command. In shell commands they're set off in orange so you don't miss one. Fill them in before running. If you want an immediately runnable invocation, copy the example block, not the generic command line above it.
  • Highlighting only for recognized languages. .htaccess, nginx.conf, and PowerShell are colored in their own syntax, and in the Apache, NGINX, and Certbot sheets the tool detects configuration snippets one by one. HTTP Status Codes, MIME Types, and Regex Reference stay plain text without colors. Everything else is treated as shell — so for YAML, SQL, or JSON examples the coloring is purely cosmetic. Trust the text, not the color.
  • At most 150 hits across all sheets. For generic terms the status gives the full count but shows only the first 150. Hits with every word in the command line come first — which is why a sheet can show up a second time further down, then with hits from the description. Another word or a phrase shortens the list.
  • The switch keeps your query. With the search across all sheets on, your query stays put even when you pick a different sheet from the menu — the new sheet gets filtered right away. Without the switch, a sheet change clears the search.
  • Only one sheet visible at a time. You can't show two sheets side by side. To compare apt and dnf, open them in two browser tabs (thanks to deep links, each has its own URL) — or search all sheets for the task, and the matching commands of both tools end up in one list.
  • Pure reference, not a playground. The tool runs nothing and validates nothing. It shows you the syntax — you test in your own terminal.
  • Sheets load on demand. The first time you open a sheet there's a brief fetch; after that it's cached and instant. The first search across all sheets fetches every sheet not yet loaded in one go (roughly 400 KB compressed) — on slow connections that takes a moment, and every search after that is instant. On a network problem you get an error notice instead of content — just reload.

Combine with other JPKCom tools

The Cheat Sheets are the fast lookup part; for working on code and regular expressions there are matching interactive tools:

  • Regex tool — the "Regex Reference" sheet gives you the syntax, the regex tool lets you test the expression against real text live. Look it up first, then try it out.
  • Source tool — when you build a longer pipeline out of a sed, awk, or jq command, the source tool helps you view and tidy the result.
  • Coder tool — commands like openssl, curl, or base64 often work with encoded values; the coder tool encodes and decodes Base64, URL, JWT, and more right in the browser.

A curiosity on the side: among the 220 sheets, the Development category even includes a Claude Code sheet — the command-line reference for the AI coding assistant. The tool itself, however, has no AI feature: it's a classic, static reference that you search and copy from.

More context: the overview for the big picture, the manual for every feature, and the examples for the step-by-step workflows. You can try all of it right in the tool.