A custom C# interactive shell, customizable.

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🧠 What is NShell?

NShell is a lightweight, extensible shell written in C# using [.NET 8.0+].
It's designed for hackers, shell lovers, and those who enjoy boot sequences.

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✨ Features

• ✅ Custom interactive shell interface
• ✅ Built-in command loader with registration system
• ✅ Command metadata (Description, IsInteractive, RequiresRoot, etc.)
• ✅ Handle customs commands, but load also /usr/bin, /usr/sbin..ect commands.
• ✅ Spectre.Console markup support for colors, glitches, animations
• ✅ Full AOT support (with manual command registration)
• ✅ Future-proof extensibility (plugin-style architecture)
• ✅ Tab completion for commands and file paths
• ✅ Command history with Ctrl+R reverse search
• ✅ Command aliases (alias/unalias)
• ✅ Environment variable management (export/unset/printenv)
• ✅ Word-based cursor navigation (Ctrl+Left/Right)
• ✅ Rich built-in commands (help, history, which, pwd, echo, clear, exit)
• ✅ Output redirection (>, >>)
• ✅ Command chaining (&&, ||, ;)
• ✅ Basic piping support (|)

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🚀 Installation

Clone the repo and install:

git clone https://github.com/onihilist/NShell.git
cd NShell
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

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🎨 Custom themes

This is a little exemple of an custom theme.
If you are using format_top/bottom & corner_top/bottom, format will be ignored.
For making a single line prompt use format, and double line format_top/bottom.
N.B : path_slash_color & path_words_color works with single and double line shell prompt. Exemple :

{
  "name": "test",
  "format": "[bold green][[{user}@{host}]][/][white][[{cwd}]] >>[/]",
  "format_top": "[[[bold cyan]{user}[/]@[bold cyan]{host}[/]]]",
  "format_bottom": "[[{cwd}]]",
  "corner_top": "[bold magenta]\u250c[/]",
  "corner_bottom": "[bold magenta]\u2514[/]",
  "ls_colors": "di=34:fi=37:ln=36:pi=33:so=35:ex=32",
  "path_slash_color": "cyan",
  "path_words_color": "yellow"
}

The name of the theme is test, no matter what the file is named.
So enter the command : settheme test.
This is the result :

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⚙️ Plugin(s)

Since version 0.5.0, you can build your own plugin (DLL) and add this to NShell. This is a simple exemple :

using NShell.Shell.Commands;
using NShell.Shell;
using Spectre.Console;

namespace HelloPlugin
{
    public class HelloPlugin : ICustomCommand
    {
        public string Name => "hello";

        public HelloPlugin()
        {
            CommandRegistry.Register(this);
        }

        public void Execute(ShellContext context, string[] args)
        {
            AnsiConsole.MarkupLine("[green]Hello from HelloPlugin![/]");
        }
    }
}

And DON'T FORGET TO USE THE SAME IMPORTS AS NSHELL ! With the same version of Spectre.Console (0.50.0)

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
<PropertyGroup>
  <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
  <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
  <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
  <ProjectReference Include="../NShell/NShell.csproj"/>
  <PackageReference Include="Spectre.Console" Version="0.50.0" />
</ItemGroup>
</Project>

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📡 Roadmap v1.0.0

• [PROGRESS] Plugin support (dynamic loading)
• [OK] Fix neofetch shell version
• [OK] Fix interactive commands/scripts running configuration
• [OK] Autocomplete
• [OK] Command history
• [OK] Profiles and theme switching
• [OK] Remove Bash FallBack
• [OK] Themes & ThemeLoader

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🔨 Built-in Commands

NShell comes with a rich set of built-in commands:

Command	Description
help	Display all available commands with descriptions
about	Display information about NShell
exit	Exit the shell gracefully
clear	Clear the terminal screen
cd <dir>	Change directory
pwd	Print current working directory
echo <text>	Display text (supports variable expansion)
history [n]	Show command history (optionally last n commands)
alias name='cmd'	Create command alias (persisted across sessions)
unalias name	Remove command alias
export VAR=value	Set environment variable
unset VAR	Remove environment variable
printenv [VAR]	Print environment variables
which <cmd>	Show path to command
settheme <name>	Change shell theme

Keyboard Shortcuts:

• Tab - Auto-complete commands and paths
• Ctrl+R - Reverse history search
• Ctrl+A / Home - Move cursor to start of line
• Ctrl+E / End - Move cursor to end of line
• Ctrl+Left/Right - Move cursor by word
• Up/Down - Navigate command history

Advanced Shell Features:

• Command chaining with && (run if previous succeeded), || (run if previous failed), and ; (always run)
• Output redirection with > (overwrite) and >> (append)
• Basic piping with | (pipe output between commands)
• Smart command suggestions with "Did you mean...?" for typos
• Persistent aliases (saved in ~/.nshell/nshellrc.json)

Examples:

# Chain commands
echo "Building..." && dotnet build && echo "Success!" || echo "Failed!"

# Redirect output
echo "Hello World" > output.txt
history 50 >> history.log

# Use aliases (persisted across sessions)
alias ll='ls -la'
ll

# Environment variables
export MY_VAR="Hello"
echo {MY_VAR}

# Fast startup
nshell --no-banner

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🔧 Troubleshooting

If you have any problem with NShell, or it locks you out of a proper shell,
you can forcefully switch back to bash like this:

sudo sed -i "s|/usr/local/bin/nshell|/bin/bash|" /etc/passwd

If you got the error "bad interpreter" when running install.sh try to run this :

sudo apt update
sudo apt install dos2unix
dos2unix install.sh