What You Should Know Now — and What's Next

What You Should Know Now

• Navigating the file system and managing files from the command line
• Pipes, redirection, and combining small tools to do big jobs
• Variables, quoting, expansions, and arithmetic
• Conditionals, loops, case, and functions
• Arrays and associative arrays
• Exit codes, error handling, and argument parsing
• Text processing with grep, sed, awk, cut, sort, and friends
• Finding files, processes, jobs, and signals
• Environment variables, configuration, JSON with jq, and HTTP with curl
• Strict mode, traps, safe temporary files, and ShellCheck
• Portability with POSIX sh, performance, and security
• Scheduling, SSH automation, containers, and CI pipelines

What Should You Learn Next?

• Linux administration — users and permissions, systemd services, networking, package management, and logs. Bash is the everyday tool for all of it.
• Git in depth — branching, rebasing, and hooks, which you'll script constantly.
• Containers and infrastructure — Docker, Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform and Ansible.
• A general-purpose language — Python for scripts that outgrow Bash (complex data, error handling, libraries). A rough rule: when a script passes about 100 lines or needs real data structures, consider rewriting it in Python.
• Windows automation — PowerShell, which uses similar ideas but passes objects instead of text between commands.

Build Something

Look at something you do by hand every week — renaming files, checking servers, preparing a report, setting up a new machine — and automate it with a script. Keep it in version control, run ShellCheck on it, and improve it each time you use it.