Introduction

find is powerful but the syntax is painful. You end up Googling it every time.

Compare this:

# find
find . -name "*.js" -type f -not -path "*/node_modules/*"

# fd
fd .js

That's fd - simpler syntax, faster, and respects .gitignore by default.

Why it's useful

Respects .gitignore: When searching a project, fd automatically skips node_modules, .git, __pycache__, etc. No need to manually exclude them.

Fast: Built in Rust, often 2-3x faster than find on large codebases.

Simple syntax: Patterns are just regex. No more remembering -name vs -iname vs -path.

Colored output: Different file types get different colors, easier to scan.

Example

Finding config files:

# With find
find . -type f -name "*config*.js" -not -path "*/node_modules/*" -not -path "*/.git/*"

# With fd
fd config.js

If node_modules is in .gitignore, fd already knows to skip it.