inshellisense-rs

Cross-platform shell autocomplete — a Rust port of Microsoft's inshellisense.

Type a partial command, see the best completion appear in grey after the cursor, press → to accept. Same PowerShell PSReadLine feel, implemented as a PTY wrapper around your existing shell. Linux, macOS, and Windows.

$ git ch█eckout        ← grey suggestion ─ press → to accept

Status

Close behavioral parity with upstream inshellisense, validated against the upstream binary across the complete suggestion engine, CLI surface, and shell init. The checked-in parity corpus passes 117/117 cases; cargo test runs 231 tests. 1470 specs are bundled (zstd-compressed), lazy-loaded on demand, and extracted statically; offline gaps that would need live process state or opaque JS closures are handled with Rust-native generators or documented as runtime boundaries. Pure Rust — no JS runtime, no Node.js. 29 crates. Supports bash, zsh, fish, pwsh, powershell, xonsh, nushell, and cmd.exe (Windows).

If an installed coreutils build is on PATH — Microsoft's Coreutils for Windows, or upstream uutils/coreutils — its commands are detected and completed too.

Platform	Status
Linux	Fully tested
macOS	Compiles (POSIX-compatible), needs field testing
Windows 10+	Field-tested (ConPTY, PowerShell + Git Bash in Windows Terminal). The console input layer was reworked recently and is cross-compile-checked and unit-tested, but that rework has not been run on Windows hardware.

Footprint

Measured on Linux x86-64, release build:

Binary	6.1 MB (3.8 MB of that is the embedded zstd spec bundle)
Resident memory, wrapped shell idle	~94 MB
Peak memory, during startup	~216 MB
is complete 'git ch' (cold, one-shot)	~220 ms
Wrapped shell prompt	appears immediately; the spec registry loads on a background thread

Memory is dominated by the spec index: the 3.8 MB bundle decompresses to 78 MB of JSON that stays resident so individual specs can be deserialized on demand. That is a deliberate trade for a ~1 ms per-spec lookup, and it is the obvious thing to attack if you want this smaller.

Why another autocomplete tool

The existing options in bash:

Tool	Suggests new commands?	Runtime
bash-completion	only what you've typed before	shell
ble.sh	history only	shell
fzf	history only	native
Microsoft inshellisense	yes, via Fig specs	Node + V8
inshellisense-rs	yes, via Fig specs	native Rust binary

The positioning: inshellisense's feature set without the Node runtime.

Install

From source

cargo install --path .
is init bash --install-rc   # appends the bash init snippet to ~/.bashrc

--install-rc can write the snippet for bash, zsh, fish, and xonsh. pwsh, powershell, and nu resolve their profile path at runtime, so for those run is init <shell> and paste the printed line into your profile.

Or use the legacy bash auto-start wrapper:

cargo build --release
install -m 755 target/release/is ~/.local/bin/is
is install              # appends an exec wrapper to ~/.bashrc

Try without installing

exec is start           # drop into a wrapped bash in the current terminal

Usage

is start                    # run wrapped shell (the real thing)
is start --ui popup         # popup UI instead of the default hybrid
is start --shell zsh        # wrap a specific shell
is doctor                   # health checks + resolved configuration
is specs list               # enumerate loaded commands
is complete 'git ch'        # offline query → JSON (upstream's schema)
is complete 'git ch' --text # offline query → just the ghost-text tail
is init bash                # print the init snippet for ~/.bashrc
is init bash --install-rc   # write the bash init snippet into ~/.bashrc
is reinit                   # regenerate init files and re-unpack resources
is uninstall                # remove cached resources (keeps user config)
is install                  # legacy: auto-start wrapper in ~/.bashrc

is start exits with the wrapped shell's exit status, so it composes in scripts: is start --shell bash <<< 'exit 42' exits 42.

Arguments a subcommand does not implement are rejected rather than ignored — notably, is uninstall --dry-run fails instead of quietly uninstalling.

Keys in the wrapped shell

Ghost text (--ui ghost, and the ghost half of the default hybrid):

Key	Action
→ / End / Ctrl-E	Accept the current ghost suggestion

Popup (--ui popup, and the popup half of hybrid):

Key	Action	Config key
↓	Next suggestion	bindings.next_suggestion
↑	Previous suggestion	bindings.previous_suggestion
Tab	Accept the selected suggestion	bindings.accept_suggestion
Esc	Dismiss until the line changes	bindings.dismiss_suggestions

Everything else is forwarded to the shell unchanged.

Configuration

~/.config/inshellisense-rs/rc.toml (%APPDATA%\inshellisense-rs\rc.toml on Windows). Upstream's ~/.inshellisenserc and ~/.config/inshellisense/rc.toml are also read, for migration. Both camelCase and snake_case keys are accepted; unknown keys are reported by is doctor.

# Values shown are the defaults.
ui              = "hybrid"   # "ghost" | "popup" | "hybrid"
max_suggestions = 5
use_nerd_font   = false      # Nerd Font glyphs instead of emoji in the popup
use_aliases     = false      # resolve shell aliases before completing

[specs]
path = ["/extra/spec/dir"]

[bindings]
next_suggestion     = { key = "down",   shift = false, control = false }
previous_suggestion = { key = "up",     shift = false, control = false }
accept_suggestion   = { key = "tab",    shift = false, control = false }
dismiss_suggestions = { key = "escape", shift = false, control = false }

Environment variables:

Variable	Effect
INSH_RS_SPECS_DIR	Extra directory of JSON specs to load
INSH_RS_NO_COREUTILS	Skip coreutils detection
ISTERM / INSH_RS	Set inside a wrapped session; used as the re-entry guard

User-defined specs

Drop TOML files in ~/.config/inshellisense-rs/specs/ to add or override commands. The schema mirrors the Rust model in src/spec/model.rs. Additional JSON spec directories can be loaded with INSH_RS_SPECS_DIR or the [specs].path array in ~/.config/inshellisense-rs/rc.toml.

# ~/.config/inshellisense-rs/specs/hello.toml
names = ["hello"]
description = "Say hello"

[[subcommands]]
names = ["world"]
description = "Say hello to the world"

[[subcommands]]
names = ["kitty"]
description = "Say hello to a cat"

Coreutils

Microsoft's Coreutils for Windows ships one multi-call binary with a hardlink per utility, bundling coreutils, findutils and a GNU-compatible grep. It is a build of uutils/coreutils, so the same detection works for uutils on Linux and macOS.

We do not bundle these tools — we describe whichever one is installed. When a coreutils binary is on PATH:

• A coreutils spec is registered whose subcommands are whatever coreutils --list reports, so coreutils ls --<TAB> completes ls's options. Microsoft's fork drops timeout, kill and chmod — they collide with Windows built-ins — and adds find, xargs and grep.
• Utilities the bundled Fig corpus does not cover get a spec synthesized from their --help — b2sum, numfmt, the sha*sum family and the rest. On a uutils 0.9.0 install that is 50 of its 107 utilities; Microsoft's fork ships a different set, which is why the list is read from the binary rather than hardcoded.
• For a utility the corpus does cover, the options the installed binary actually accepts are merged in. Fig's ls spec is BSD-flavored: it knows -a but not --all, so ls --all<TAB> used to complete nothing on a coreutils system. Merging keeps Fig's curated descriptions and folds the missing long forms into the existing options.

The merge only happens after confirming the command on PATH really is that binary, by comparing <util> --version against coreutils <util> --version.

Results are cached under ~/.inshellisense/coreutils/, keyed by the binary's size and mtime, so the steady-state cost is zero subprocesses. INSH_RS_NO_COREUTILS=1 disables detection; is doctor reports what it found.

Architecture

┌─────────────────┐   bytes   ┌────────────────┐
│ user's terminal │──────────▶│  platform PTY  │
│                 │           │ (shell wrapper)│
│                 │◀──────────│                │
└────────┬────────┘   bytes   └───────┬────────┘
         │                            │
         ▼                            ▼
   ┌──────────┐               ┌───────────────┐
   │ renderer │◀──────────────│ vt100 tracker │
   │  (ANSI)  │ suggestion    │ + command mgr │
   └──────────┘  ▲            └───────┬───────┘
                 │                    │ command state
                 │                    ▼
                 │            ┌────────────────┐
                 └────────────│ suggest engine │  ← worker thread
                              │  + spec walker │
                              └────────────────┘

The suggestion engine parses the current command-line state using a tokenizer and resolver ported from inshellisense, walks a registry of Fig.Spec-shaped specs, and returns a ranked Vec<Suggestion>. The renderer picks the top suggestion and emits grey-foreground ANSI that positions at the cursor via save/restore.

Suggestions are computed off the event loop. Spec generators shell out (git branch, docker ps) with a 5-second default timeout, so running them inline would freeze keystrokes for as long as the slowest one took.

Comparison with inshellisense

inshellisense-rs aims for behavioral parity with Microsoft's inshellisense on the specs it covers. Where it differs:

	inshellisense	inshellisense-rs
Runtime	Node + V8	native Rust binary
Shell support	bash, zsh, fish, pwsh, nu, xonsh, cmd	bash, zsh, fish, pwsh, powershell, xonsh, nu, cmd
Fig spec coverage	~715 specs via dynamic import	1470/1470 loaded (100.0%) via the static extractor
JS runtime for opaque closures	always on (Node)	none — pure Rust static extraction only
Coreutils / uutils detection	no	yes
Ghost-text rendering	yes	yes
Right-arrow to accept	yes	yes

Upstream's own footprint figures are not re-measured here; see Footprint for what this port actually costs.

Roadmap

Phase	Goal	Status
1	Schema v2 + tokenizer + resolver	✅ done
2	Vec<Suggestion> output + concurrent multi-generator exec	✅ done
3	Extractor tool + spec loader + 715+ spec coverage	✅ done
4	PostProcessKind DSL + lazy LoadSpec + extractor isolation	✅ done
4.5	Extractor identifier + property-access resolution	✅ done
4.6	Static factory evaluator + template folding → 97.1% coverage	✅ done
5	Initial parity corpus + GitHub Actions CI gate	✅ done
6.1	createVersionedSpec handler → 97.6%	✅ done
6.2	ProjectFile + FileExistsThen generators + shorthand fix → 99.86% pure / 100% loaded	✅ done
6.6	Parity expansion to 117 cases + CI threshold tightening	✅ done
6.7	Audit remediation for CLI/config/completion/terminal edge cases	✅ done
6.8	Full-repo audit: 45 root causes across runtime, extractor, parity scanner, and CI	✅ done
6.9	Coreutils / uutils detection and --help-derived specs	✅ done
—	Shrink the resident spec index (currently 78 MB of JSON held for lazy lookup)	open
6	rquickjs JS runtime for opaque closures	dropped — pure Rust path reached 99.86%

Credits

inshellisense-rs stands on the shoulders of:

• inshellisense by Microsoft — the algorithmic design, the shell integration protocol, the parser/resolver reference implementation.
• @withfig/autocomplete by Hercules Labs (Fig, now AWS) — the ~715 completion specs that make this useful on real commands.
• bash-preexec by Ryan Caloras — the precmd/preexec plumbing for the shell integration.
• uutils/coreutils and Microsoft's Coreutils for Windows — the utilities detected and completed at runtime.

All are MIT licensed. See NOTICE for full attribution and LICENSES/ for upstream license texts.

inshellisense-rs is not affiliated with Microsoft, Amazon, Fig, or Hercules Labs. "IntelliSense" is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.