For the longest time, I’d been using iTerm2 as my terminal app on the Mac, but switched to Warp a couple of years ago. Its smart completions and IDE-like editing are incredibly useful features, but the thing that really makes it stand apart is the AI assistance.
Here’s a recent example. I’m more familiar with mobile and Python frameworks than I am with JavaScript and TypeScript ones, so I never know how to launch a JS/TS application when the developer hasn’t provided a README.
Normally, I’d start poking around the filesystem, looking at config files and other artifacts and doing some Googling to see which framework they belonged to. But this time, I decided “Why not let the AI do the scut work?” So that’s what I did.
I opened a new tab in Warp and entered:
Okay, Warp, I'm in a directory of an application written in JavaScript (or possibly TypeScript), and need to run it. But I don't know which framework it uses, and there are more of them than there are Pokemon. Help me run whatever this thing is, please.
It replied with:
First, let's check for common configuration files that will tell us what kind of JavaScript/TypeScript application this is. Looking for package.json, angular.json, vue.config.js, or other framework-specific files.
It then asked for permission to execute the command ls -la, which I deemed as harmless (directory listing, long format, all files).
Warp responded with:
I can see this is a Next.js application (due to the presence of .next directory, next.config.mjs, and next-env.d.ts). It's using Yarn as the package manager (yarn.lock present). Let me check the package.json to see what scripts are available to run the application.
It asked for permission to do something again — this time, to execute cat package.json (print out, or conCATenate the contents of the file package.jsonso that it could read it. I gave my approval, and it responded with the steps necessary to run the application:
Features like this are why I use Warp and other AI tools!
Right now, Warp is available for macOS, as well as Debian, Fedora, Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu flavors of Linux. They’re working on a Windows version too.