🛠️ Forging Tiny Rust Tools for a Smoother i3 Workflow

If you’ve ever found yourself repeatedly killing processes from the terminal or opening a quick scratchpad to jot a thought, you know how little tools can make a huge difference in daily productivity. That’s why I built two tiny Rust applications—roseprocess and RoseNotes—and wired them into my tiling window manager setup to make these tasks effortless.

🚀 What I Built

đź’ˇ Both tools are Rust GUI apps designed for speed, simplicity, and keyboard-centric use:

  • roseprocess — A lightweight, keyboard-first process manager built with Rust that lets me list, filter, and kill Linux processes quickly when I need to. ([GitHub][1])
  • RoseNotes — A minimal, instant-open scratchpad for plain-text notes. Open it, write, and exit—saves instantly and gets out of the way. ([GitHub][2])

Rust was the language of choice because it gives me compiled speed, safe memory handling, and a single binary I can drop anywhere. These tools are simple enough to keep all logic in one file, yet powerful enough to enhance my workflow significantly.

đź“Ť Putting Them in /usr/local/bin

Once built, I place the binaries in:

/usr/local/bin

This makes them globally accessible on Linux without worrying about paths or shell scripts.

After a normal Cargo build (cargo build --release), I copy:

sudo cp target/release/roseprocess /usr/local/bin
sudo cp target/release/rosenotes /usr/local/bin

Now the commands roseprocess and rosenotes just work from any terminal.

🧠 Integrating with i3 Keybinds

One of the huge productivity wins for me was tying these tools into my i3wm keybinds:

# quick tools
bindsym Mod1+p exec roseprocess
bindsym Mod1+n exec rosenotes

That’s it.

  • Alt + p opens my process manager
  • Alt + n opens my instant notes scratchpad

Having them accessible anywhere with a single press is incredibly handy when I’m deep in a coding session or debugging an odd process.

✨ Why Build My Own Tools

Sure, there are existing utilities that do similar things—htop, generic editors, note tools, etc. But sometimes the right tool is one that’s customized for your own workflow:

  • One file, one purpose — less to maintain, easy to audit.
  • Rust → single binary — no runtime deps, small and fast.
  • Keyboard first — designed for tiling window managers like i3.
  • Instant access — integrated into my workflow with keybinds.

I built these specifically so I had quick access to the tools I use most in my i3/KDE setup on MX Linux. Whether it’s killing a rogue process without a mouse, or opening a jot pad in a flash, these small utilities shave seconds off every day—seconds that really add up.

📦 Try Them Yourself

Check out the source, build them with Rust, and drop them in your path:

Happy forging! 🔨