The GNU Core Utilities or coreutils is a package of GNU software containing implementations for many of the basic tools, such as cat, ls, and rm, which are used on Unix-like operating systems.

In September 2002, the GNU coreutils were created by merging the earlier packages textutils, shellutils, and fileutils, along with some other miscellaneous utilities.

[4] The GNU core utilities support long options as parameters to the commands, as well as the relaxed convention allowing options even after the regular arguments (unless the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is set).

Alternative implementation packages are available in the FOSS ecosystem, with a slightly different scope and focus (less functionality), or license.

[8] In 2002, Meyering announced GNU coreutils as a merger of the earlier packages textutils, shellutils, and fileutils, along with some other miscellaneous utilities.