zsh-autosuggestions: zsh autosuggest plugin for Zsh

Repeating commands from your shell history

Every Zsh user eventually retypes the same long docker run flags, git incantation, or ssh hostname dozens of times a week, and stock Zsh only helps if you remember to hit Ctrl+R and search for it. zsh-autosuggestions skips that step. As soon as you type enough of a command to match something you've run before, the rest of the line appears right there, no separate search UI required.

What zsh-autosuggestions does

zsh-autosuggestions is a Zsh plugin that shows a suggested command in muted gray text after your cursor as you type, based on matches from your shell history or the completion engine. It requires Zsh v4.3.11 or later and works by hooking into Zsh Line Editor (zle) widgets rather than replacing your prompt or shell. Press the right arrow or End to accept the full suggestion, or forward-word to take it piece by piece.

Customizing suggestion strategies and appearance

• ✓Three interchangeable suggestion strategies — history (last matching command), completion (whatever tab-completion would offer, needs the zpty module), and match_prev_cmd (like history but keyed to the command you ran immediately before).
• ✓ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_STRATEGY takes an array, so you can chain strategies and fall through to the next one when the first finds nothing — try history, then completion.
• ✓Suggestion color and style are configurable via ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE (foreground, background, bold, underline, standout), not just an on/off toggle.
• ✓Five widget arrays (CLEAR, ACCEPT, EXECUTE, PARTIAL_ACCEPT, IGNORE_WIDGETS) let you rewire exactly which zle keybindings trigger which suggestion behavior.
• ✓ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HISTORY_IGNORE and ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_COMPLETION_IGNORE take glob patterns to silence suggestions for specific commands, like never suggesting cd * or git * completions.
• ✓ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_BUFFER_MAX_SIZE turns suggestions off past a buffer length, so pasting a big block of text doesn't trigger a lookup.

Installing the plugin

Exact install commands aren't clearly documented in what's given here — the README defers to a separate INSTALL.md file instead of listing steps inline. What is documented: zsh-autosuggestions needs Zsh v4.3.11 or later, and the Uninstallation section shows the shape of a typical install in reverse — the plugin lives as a cloned git repository (the README's own uninstall example uses ~/.zsh/zsh-autosuggestions as the path) and gets sourced from a line in ~/.zshrc, which you'd remove along with the repo to uninstall. If you run Oh My Zsh, the README recommends putting any ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_* configuration overrides in a file inside your $ZSH_CUSTOM directory rather than editing .zshrc directly, so they survive framework updates.

Accepting and fine-tuning suggestions

Once sourced, zsh-autosuggestions works passively: start typing a command and it shows the rest of the line after your cursor in muted gray text (the color comes from ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE, default fg=8). With the cursor at the end of the buffer, pressing the right arrow (the forward-char widget) or End (end-of-line) accepts the whole suggestion and replaces the buffer with it. Invoking forward-word accepts only up to where the cursor lands — that's how you take a suggestion one word at a time. The plugin also exposes its own widgets — autosuggest-accept, autosuggest-execute, autosuggest-clear, autosuggest-fetch, autosuggest-disable, autosuggest-enable, and autosuggest-toggle — that you can bind yourself, for example bindkey '^ ' autosuggest-accept to accept with Ctrl+Space. Which source a suggestion comes from is controlled by ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_STRATEGY, an array tried in order: history for your most recent matching command, completion for whatever the completion engine offers, or match_prev_cmd for a history match keyed to the command you ran right before it.

Other zsh autocomplete options

Frequently asked questions

Best use cases

• •Typing long, repeatable commands — docker run flags, curl calls with headers, ssh aliases — where retyping the same string is pure friction.
• •Working inside an existing Oh My Zsh setup, since the README documents dropping ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_* overrides into a $ZSH_CUSTOM file.
• •Terminal-heavy workflows where glancing at a gray suggestion beats breaking flow to hit Ctrl+R.
• •Custom keybinding setups, since every accept/clear/execute action is exposed as its own zle widget you can bind independently.

Who should try it — and who should skip

Anyone who lives in a terminal and already knows their way around .zshrc should try zsh-autosuggestions — it's a small, single-purpose addition with no dependency beyond Zsh itself. Skip it if you rarely reuse commands, or if you'd rather not learn another set of ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_* variables when something needs tuning — the completion strategy in particular expects you to understand zpty and your existing completion setup.

Related repositories