auto-click-auto

Automatically enable tab autocompletion for shells in Click CLI applications.

auto-click-auto is a small Python library that is used to quickly and easily add tab shell completion support for Bash (version 4.4 and up), Zsh, and Fish, for Click CLI programs.

Installation

pip install auto-click-auto

Usage

There are two functions that auto-click-auto makes available: enable_click_shell_completion (general use) and enable_click_shell_completion_option (to be used as a decorator).

In the function docstrings, you can find a detailed analysis of the available parameters and their use.

auto-click-auto will print the relative output when a shell completion is activated for the first time and can be set to an extra verbosity if you want to display information about already configured systems or debug.

Here are some typical ways to enable autocompletion with auto-click-auto:

1. Check on every run of the CLI program if autocompletion is configured and enable it in case that it is not

This way you can seamlessly enable shell autocompletion without the user having to run any extra commands.

Example:

import click

from auto_click_auto import enable_click_shell_completion
from auto_click_auto.constants import ShellType


@click.command()
@click.option('--count', default=1, help='Number of greetings.')
@click.option('--name', prompt='Your name', help='The person to greet.')
def hello(count, name):
    """Simple program that greets NAME for a total of COUNT times."""
    for x in range(count):
        click.echo(f"Hello {name}!")

    enable_click_shell_completion(
        program_name="example-1", shells={ShellType.BASH, ShellType.FISH},
    )

2. Make shell completion a Click command option

Example:

import click

from auto_click_auto import enable_click_shell_completion_option


@click.command()
@enable_click_shell_completion_option(program_name="example-2")
@click.option('--count', default=1, help='Number of greetings.')
@click.option('--name', prompt='Your name', help='The person to greet.')
def hello(count, name):
    """Simple program that greets NAME for a total of COUNT times."""
    for x in range(count):
        click.echo(f"Hello {name}!")

3. Make shell completion a command (or subcommand of a group)

This implementation option might be useful if you already have a "configuration" command in your CLI program.

Example:

import click

from auto_click_auto import enable_click_shell_completion
from auto_click_auto.constants import ShellType


@click.group()
def cli():
    """Simple CLI program."""
    pass


@cli.command()
@click.option('--count', default=1, help='Number of greetings.')
@click.option('--name', prompt='Your name', help='The person to greet.')
def hello(count, name):
    """Simple command that greets NAME for a total of COUNT times."""
    for x in range(count):
        click.echo(f"Hello {name}!")


@cli.group()
def config():
    """Program configuration."""
    pass


@config.command()
def shell_completion():
    """Activate shell completion for this program."""
    enable_click_shell_completion(
        program_name="example-3",
        shells={ShellType.BASH, ShellType.FISH, ShellType.ZSH},
        verbose=True,
    )

Examples

To run the examples, fork this repository and follow the instructions at https://github.com/KAUTH/auto-click-auto/tree/main/examples.

Implementation

auto-click-auto enables tab autocompletion based on Click's documentation.

Name

auto-click-auto, as the name suggests, _auto_matically provides tab _auto_completion support for Click CLI applications.

Why auto-click-auto?

In the search for other tools that enable shell completion for Click we come across a lot of repositories with example code or gists. This adds a bit of complexity to adapting the code and adding it to our use case quickly.

A very nice tool is click-completion, which provides enhanced completion for Click. click-completion:

• Adds automatic completion support for fish, Zsh, Bash and PowerShell
• Currently, has one extra dependency, in addition to Click
• Can customize the completion

However, it is important to note that this repository could be duplicating currently integrated Click functionality and might need to be archived. You can monitor the issue here.

In summary, auto-click-auto:

• Has one specific purpose, it "automatically" enables shell completion for Click programs
• Does not have any 3rd party dependencies, besides Click
• Provides an option for seamless enabling of the shell completion
• Comes ready with ways to add shell completion as a command option or subcommand
• Has simple examples of how to quickly use the library

Changelog

https://github.com/KAUTH/auto-click-auto/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md

Contributing

You can always submit a PR if you want to suggest improvements or fix issues. Check out the open issues at https://github.com/KAUTH/auto-click-auto/issues.