# How Birbsh started

[2026-10-11 21:02:06] <Digit> birbsh needs to be a thing, if it's not already.  pretty easy to make your own shell these days.  n_n  (i already made one, in zig, called nish)
[2026-10-11 21:02:21] <Birb> i dun wanna
[2026-10-11 21:02:24] <Digit> hehehehhehe
[2026-10-11 21:02:38] <Digit> i might
[2026-10-11 21:02:39] <Birb> E F F O R T 
[2026-10-11 21:02:49] <Digit> challenge accepted!

And on that whim,

[2026-10-11 21:07:22] <Digit> https://dpaste.com/D7HLH95KY btw
[2026-10-11 21:07:54] <Digit> :)  4minutes 20seconds, i estimate that took me.  lol.

iirc, that original version pastebinned was:


birbsh - a shell written in haskell, for birb, by Digit and Mistral
797 bytes of Haskell
Created now — expires in 1 day
1 view
```
module Main where

import Control.Monad (forever)
import System.Directory (findExecutable, setCurrentDirectory)
import System.Exit (exitSuccess)
import System.IO (hFlush, stdout)
import System.Process (spawnProcess, waitForProcess)

main :: IO ()
main = forever $ do
  putStr "$ " >> hFlush stdout
  input <- getLine
  case words input of
    []        -> return ()              -- empty line: just re-prompt
    (cmd:args) -> run cmd args

run :: String -> [String] -> IO ()
run "cd" [dir] = setCurrentDirectory dir
run "cd" _     = putStrLn "usage: cd <dir>"
run "exit" _   = exitSuccess
run cmd args   = do
  found <- findExecutable cmd
  case found of
    Nothing -> putStrLn (cmd ++ ": command not found")
    Just exe -> do
      _ <- spawnProcess exe args >>= waitForProcess
      return ()
```

showing off both how impressive both LLM and Haskell are.  Make a shell in 5 minutes, with code you can read.  Non-intimidating beginnings.  Not even a kilobyte.