shell tab-completion

[zkat]

jfc please just give us completion support, at least for existing binaries in the $PATH or in ~/.npm/_npx/bin. There's gotta be something nice and easy the cool kids use these days to set up easy completion stuff.

Do you wanna pick this up? I'd love the help.

[pi0]

@zkat Do you mean using auto completion functionality for shells like Bash or Zsh ? :))

[zkat]

@pi0 I want to do npx stan<TAB> -> npx standard, if standard is in the $PATH. It's not really necessary to auto-complete for remote package names (yet?), but having the basic thing working would be nice.

[egourlao]

I got it running on a few shells:

• For bash, it requires adding complete -A command npx to your ~/.bashrc file.
• For zsh, it requires adding compctl -m npx to your ~/.zshrc file.

Issue with this command though is that it returns all the commands in $PATH, not just those installed with npm. I didn't get it running on fish, but if there are some enthusiasts here, there's a complete function in fish - that has a man page.

Also, it's possible for bash and zsh to program the shell to call a shell function to get the completion list - so depending on the shell, it could be possible for users to auto-complete for remote package names.

What do you think should be the approach to let users know about this, add it in the README?

[zkat]

@dotpy3 I think having something for folks to get started is a great idea. We can deal with remote-pkg autocompletion later, since that is a little harder (the search space is enormous and I need to see what the state-of-the-art is for the registry rn)

I would add a section to the README that describes how to set up auto completion.

[LitoMore]

I want to do npx stan<TAB> -> npx standard, if standard is in the ./node_modules/.bin/ but not in the $PATH.

We need a shell plugin like this one -> robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh#1614 .

[kaleb]

I can start the completions for fish.

[zkat]

@kaleb awesome!

[Haroenv]

When we get there later, there's an Algolia index with all package information that could be used, this should be fast enough for auto-completion. I can provide more information if wanted

[gibatronic]

I've made a bash script that might put some light on the matter: https://gist.github.com/gibatronic/44073260ffdcbd122e9520756c8e35a1

When typing npx <tab> it is going to suggest any executable inside the ./node_modules/.bin/ folder.

[alvaropinot]

Any updates about the remote search or the actual completion script 😃? I just though about doing this 😅

@Haroenv can you please provide more info about that Algolia index? 😊

[Haroenv]

All info for that should be at https://github.com/Algolia/npm-search, an example usage is https://github.com/yarnpkg/website or Emma CLI. Feel free to ask more info in email (haroen@algolia.com)

[zkat]

We don't use Algolia and we won't be. We have our own completion endpoint but it needs to be scaled/load-tested before it can be made public (and thus the CLI can use it). We actually don't like Algolia's results very much (and yes, I'm leaving it at that).

[Haroenv]

Sure, sorry for suggesting :)