The Simplest Way to Make Just Interactive: Use --choose

Source: Dev.to

The “Native” Way

While you can manually pipe just --list into fzf, just has a built‑in feature that handles this natively.
If fzf is installed, you don’t need a custom recipe at all.

Running the interactive chooser

just --choose

This command automatically parses your recipes, opens fzf, and executes the selected recipe when you hit Enter.

Aliases for common tasks

If you run specific types of tasks frequently, combine just --choose with a shell alias.

# General interactive just
alias j='just --choose'

# Interactive just filtered for Docker tasks only
alias jd='just --choose --chooser "fzf --query=docker"'

Add the aliases to your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc.

Customizing the chooser

You can customize the look and feel of the chooser globally by setting the JUST_CHOOSER environment variable in your justfile (or shell profile):

export JUST_CHOOSER='fzf --header "⚡ Select Task" --height 40% --layout reverse --border'

Zero boilerplate

• No need to pollute your justfile with a “menu” recipe.
• Clean output: respects docstrings and ignores internal recipes (those starting with an underscore).

Default interactive chooser

To make the interactive menu appear by default when you run just, add this to the top of your justfile:

# Run the interactive chooser by default
default:
    @just --choose

Benefits

• Speed – a single binary call rather than a chain of piped commands.
• Maintainability – reduces maintenance overhead by using built‑in flags and environment variables.
• Productivity – transforms a static list of commands into a dynamic, user‑friendly CLI.

💡 Note
This approach works well for automating complex Docker environments or simply speeding up local builds, keeping your workflow efficient and interactive.