zsh-autocomplete

zsh-autocomplete adds real-time type-ahead autocompletion to Zsh. Find as you type, then press Tab to insert the top completion, ShiftTab to insert the bottom one, or ↓/PgDn to select another completion.

Enjoy using this software? Become a sponsor!.

Other Features

Besides live autocompletion, zsh-autocomplete comes with many other useful completion features.

Optimized completion config

Zsh's completion system is powerful, but hard to configure. So, zsh-autocomplete does it for you, while providing a manageable list of configuration settings for changing the defaults.

Live history search

Press CtrlR or CtrlS to do live, multi-line history search.

History menu

Press ↑ (or Alt↑ or PgUp) to open a menu with the last 16 history items. If the command line is not empty, then the contents of the command line are used to perform a fuzzy history search.

Multi-selection

Press CtrlSpace in the completion menu or the history menu to insert more than one item.

Recent dirs completion

Works out of the box with zero configuration, but also supports zsh-z, zoxide, z.lua, rupa/z.sh, autojump and fasd.

Key Bindings

On the command line:

Key(s)	Action	Widget
Tab	Insert top completion	complete-word
ShiftTab	Insert bottom completion	complete-word
CtrlSpace	Show additional completions	list-expand
↓	Cursor down (if able) or completion menu	down-line-or-select
PgDn / Alt↓	Completion menu (always)	menu-select
↑	Cursor up (if able) or history menu	up-line-or-search
PgUp / Alt↑	History menu (always)	history-search
CtrlR	Live history search, newest to oldest	history-incremental-search-backward
CtrlS	Live history search, oldest to newest	history-incremental-search-forward

In the completion menu:

Key(s)	Action
↑ / ↓ / ← / →	Change selection
Alt↑	Backward one group
Alt↓	Forward one group
PgUp / PgDn	Page up/down
CtrlR	Find text forward
CtrlS	Find text backward
Tab	Insert selection and exit menu
CtrlSpace	Insert selection, but stay in menu
ShiftTab	Insert bottom completion and exit menu
Ctrl- Ctrl/	Undo and exit menu
Enter	Submit command line
other keys	Zsh default behavior

In the history menu:

Key(s)	Action
↑ / ↓	Change selection
Tab	Insert selection and exit menu
CtrlSpace	Insert selection, but stay in menu
Ctrl- Ctrl/	Undo and exit menu
Enter	Submit command line
other keys	Zsh default behavior

Requirements

Recommended:

• Tested to work with Zsh 5.7 or newer.

Minimum:

• Should theoretically work with Zsh 5.4 or newer, but I'm unable to test that.

Installing & Updating

If you use Znap, simply add the following to your .zshrc file:

znap source marlonrichert/zsh-autocomplete

Then restart your shell.

To update, do

% znap pull

For configuration options, see the included .zshrc file.

To uninstall, remove znap source marlonrichert/zsh-autocomplete from your .zshrc file, then run

% znap uninstall

Manual installation

1. Clone the repo:

   % cd ~/Git  # ...or wherever you keep your Git repos/Zsh plugins
   % git clone --depth 1 -- https://github.com/marlonrichert/zsh-autocomplete.git

2. Add at or near the top of your .zshrc file (before any calls to compdef):

   source ~/Git/zsh-autocomplete/zsh-autocomplete.plugin.zsh

3. Remove any calls to compinit from your .zshrc file.
4. If you're using Ubuntu, add to your .zshenv file:

   skip_global_compinit=1

Then restart your shell.

To update, do:

% git -C ~zsh-autocomplete pull

To uninstall, simply undo the installation steps above in reverse order:

1. Restore the lines you deleted in step 3.
2. Delete the line you added in step 2.
3. Delete the repo you created in step 1. Finally, restart your shell.

Other Frameworks/Plugin Managers

To install with another Zsh framework or plugin manager, please refer to your framework's/plugin manager's documentation for instructions.

Troubleshooting

Try the steps in the bug report template.

Author

© 2020-2021 Marlon Richert

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.