LOW risk. Read-only listing; large trees can be slow and noisy.

tree

Show a directory tree Prints directories and files as an indented tree. Useful for understanding project layouts.

Show a directory tree

low risk

interactive breakdown — edit the command and press Explain

What it does

Prints directories and files as an indented tree. Useful for understanding project layouts.

Common flags

Flag	Meaning
`-L`	Limit depth to N levels
`-a`	Include hidden files
`-d`	Directories only
`-I`	Exclude entries matching a pattern
`-h`	Human-readable sizes

Examples

tree -L 2Two levels deep · explain & risk-check →

tree -a -I ".git|node_modules"Include dotfiles but skip noise · explain & risk-check →

Pro tip

Use -L on large trees — an unbounded tree of / floods the terminal.

Reference text is hand-written and may be incomplete — check man tree for your version. Test destructive commands on a non-production system first.