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SYS-C0061 · Shell Scripting & Text Processing

Customizing Your Shell (PS1, Aliases, Colors)

Draft a prompt or an alias, and do not put a secret in PS1. Customizing Your Shell.

Updated 25 October 2026 · How-To

This is an original planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, an official standard, or legal advice. Example addresses use documentation ranges. Review every command before you paste it.

What this hour is for

PS1 is the prompt. An alias is a short name for a command you can already say. The generators draft text. They do not edit your shell rc. Colors are display, not a control.

A secret in the prompt lands in screenshots and in scrollback. One alias. Do not alias a command so that it hides rm or a redirect.

192.0.2.10/24 and example.com are documentation. They stay in the note.

The change you can finish

Apply nothing while you are writing the note. When the lab window opens, it is one change on the host named in the ticket. Read the draft, then the host, then decide.

Rollback is the file, the package version, or the snapshot you saved first. You do not invent a rollback after the only copy is gone.

  1. Draft a prompt or one alias.
  2. Read it aloud.
  3. Reject a secret and a hidden rm.
  4. Do not install it during the reading.
  5. Stop.

Mistakes that outlive the command

Customizing Your Shell (PS1, Aliases, Colors) goes wrong in a small set of ways. The list is here so the ticket can forbid them before the window.

Decisions to write down

One decision for Customizing Your Shell (PS1, Aliases, Colors): No secret is in the prompt. The alias is one command you can say. And nothing was installed.

Checks before you call it done

Confirm this before you call the change done: The draft is written. No secret is present. No hidden rm. Nothing was installed. And one change. If one of those fails, stop.

# No secrets in PS1.
# An alias does not hide rm.
# Do not edit the rc during the reading.

Before you leave the host

Customizing Your Shell (PS1, Aliases, Colors) ends when the hostname in the prompt matches the hostname in the ticket. If it does not, you are on the wrong host. Stop. A command that succeeded on the wrong host is not progress.

The draft stays a draft until a person has read the names in it. A generator does not log into the host and does not know which disk is empty. You delete a line that names a host, a path, or an account you did not write down.

192.0.2.10/24, gateway 192.0.2.1, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, and 2001:db8::/32 are documentation. example.com is a documentation name. They belong in the note. They are not values you leave on a host because a draft included them.

prompt-for-this is a reminder that a secret is missing. It is not a password, a key, or a token you save in the ticket or in git. The real secret stays in the password store.

One change is the window. If two things move and the result is wrong, you will not know which one did it. The next change waits for its own page.

If the same step fails twice, stop for the day. The failure is the result. Adding a forum command beside a half-applied change produces a host nobody can rebuild. Restore the copy you took first.

A second person reads the hostname and the change aloud. If they cannot find them in the ticket, the note is not done. Silence is not agreement. Then leave the host alone.

This page is a planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, not an official standard, and not permission to touch a host you do not administer. You do not disable a firewall, AppArmor, or SELinux to make a check pass.

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