Midnight Captain – A midnight commander inspired file manager

Midnight Commander has always been my favorite terminal file manager. It's feature-rich, fast, and actually tries to be a file manager compared to modern alternatives. However, there are quite some features that I never used, and I couldn't configure a Vim bindings that works well for me.

With OpenCode, I can finally make my own terminal file manager. I borrowed the main design concepts from Midnight Commander and some behavior from NVim-Tree file explorer.

I hope you would like it, at least I do. Since this project is entirely vibe-coded, so I'm not going to accept PR from the community, but feel free to open issues and fork it.

Dual pane— navigate two directories side by side, copy/move between themTree expand— expand/collapse directories inline withl / h, nerd font iconsVim keybindings—j / k / h / l, gg / G, ctrl+d / ctrl+u Visual selection— select ranges withV, operate on multiple files at onceFile operations— copy, cut, paste, delete (with confirmation), renameSmart create—a creates a file or directory (trailing/ = dir, nested paths supported)Fuzzy search—space opens fuzzy search in current dir;:find searches recursivelyCommand palette—: opens a command prompt for power-user actionsGoto—:goto <path> with live directory listing, tab-complete, and~ expansionSSH— browse and operate on remote servers over SFTP via:ssh user@host Nerd font icons— file type icons, open/closed folder glyphsTokyoNight theme— easy on the eyes

• A terminal with Nerd Fonts support (recommended: JetBrainsMono Nerd Font, FiraCode Nerd Font)
• macOS or Linux

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/duguyue100/midnight-captain/main/install.sh | bash

Downloads the correct pre-built binary for your OS and architecture from the latest GitHub Release and places it at ~/.local/bin/mc. If ~/.local/bin is not in your $PATH, the installer will tell you what to add.

Requires Go 1.22+.

git clone https://github.com/duguyue100/midnight-captain
cd midnight-captain
./install.sh --local-build

Runs make build and copies bin/mc to ~/.local/bin/mc.

make build # binary at bin/mc
./bin/mc

mc Launches in the current directory with dual panes.

| Key | Action | |---|---| j / k | Move cursor down / up | ctrl+d / ctrl+u | Half-page down / up | gg | Jump to top | G | Jump to bottom | tab | Switch active pane | h | Collapse directory or jump to parent | l / enter | Expand directory inline | o | Navigate into directory (change cwd) | . | Toggle hidden files |

| Key | Action | |---|---| V | Visual select mode — move to extend selection | esc | Cancel / clear selection |

| Key | Action | |---|---| a | Smart create — trailing / = dir, nested paths supported | r | Rename current file | y | Yank (copy) to clipboard | d | Cut to clipboard | p | Paste into active pane | x | Delete (prompts for confirmation) | e | Open in nvim |

| Key | Action | |---|---| space | Fuzzy search in current directory | : | Open command palette | ? | Show help overlay | q | Quit |

Open with :, then type a command.

| Command | Description | |---|---| :ssh user@host | Connect to remote server (SFTP) in active pane | :disconnect | Disconnect SSH, return to local filesystem | :goto <path> | Jump to path with live completion | :find | Recursive fuzzy search from current directory | :sort name|size|date | Change sort order | :hidden | Toggle hidden files | :quit | Exit |