After finishing this lesson, you will be able to confidently do the following 3 things.

• ▸✅ Criteria for choosing VS Code vs IntelliJ
• ▸✅ Git integration shortcuts (Ctrl+Shift+G · Alt+9)
• ▸✅ The 3 shell script safety options (set -euo pipefail)

Keep the learning goals as a checklist and close the lesson once you can answer all of them.

In one line: IDE = moving through code at the speed of thought. Master just 5 shortcuts to double your productivity.

IDE selection criteria:

7 essential shortcuts (VS Code / IntelliJ side by side):

VS Code Git Integration

Ctrl+Shift+G       — Open Source Control panel
Ctrl+Enter         — Commit staged files
Ctrl+Shift+P → Git — Search all Git commands
Ctrl+K Ctrl+O      — Open another folder

2 Must-Have Extensions

• ▸GitLens — Inline blame display per line (who wrote this code and when). Just hover over the code to see the commit message, author, and date for that line.
• ▸Git Graph — Branch history visualization. A GUI version of gitk. Unbeatable for understanding complex merge flows.

IntelliJ Git Integration

Alt + 9            — Git panel (Local Changes · Log)
Ctrl + K           — Commit
Ctrl + Shift + K   — Push
Ctrl + T           — Pull (Update Project)
Alt + ` (backtick) — Full Git operations menu (branch / merge / checkout / stash)
Ctrl + Alt + Z     — Revert changes
Shift + Shift      — Quick search from anywhere (commit SHA included)

Most Common Workflow — IntelliJ

1. Alt + `              → Menu
2. "New Branch"         → New branch
3. Work → Ctrl + K       → Commit (select files with checkboxes)
4. Ctrl + Shift + K     → Push
5. Create PR (browser)
6. Alt + `              → "Checkout" → back to main
7. Ctrl + T             → Pull

Without touching the mouse once, you can complete the entire Git flow. Master the shortcuts and cut VCS task time by 70%.

VS Code Has a Similar Flow

Ctrl+Shift+G → review changes → enter message → Ctrl+Enter
F1 → "Git: Push" → Enter
F1 → "Git: Checkout to..." → select branch

Files and directories:

• ▸ls -lah — Detailed listing (permissions · size · time)
• ▸find . -name "*.ts" -type f — Recursive search
• ▸du -sh */ — Disk usage per folder
• ▸tree -L 2 — Tree structure (2 levels deep)

Search and filter:

• ▸grep -rn "pattern" . — Recursive with line numbers
• ▸ripgrep (rg) — 10x faster than grep
• ▸cat file | head -20 / tail -f log — Top/bottom + real-time follow

Processes and resources:

• ▸ps aux | grep node — Find a process
• ▸top / htop — Real-time monitor
• ▸lsof -i :3000 — Process using a port
• ▸kill -9 <PID> — Force kill

Networking:

• ▸curl -i URL — Response including headers
• ▸ping host — Connectivity check
• ▸nc -zv host port — Check if port is open
• ▸dig domain — DNS lookup

Using pipes:

# Top 10 folders by disk usage
du -sh */ 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tail -10
# Kill process holding port 3000
lsof -ti :3000 | xargs kill -9

Knowing the concepts in this lesson lets you give AI specific instructions. Instead of a vague "fix this," you can make requests with vocabulary — and that is where token savings begin.

• ▸"Compile my top 10 IDE shortcuts into a cheat sheet"
• ▸"Recommend 5 VS Code extensions that fit this project"

Why This Reduces Tokens

When you don't know the concepts, you have to ask "what does that mean?" after every AI response. Those follow-up questions eat tokens. Learn the concept once and the conversation ends in one shot.