[GH-ISSUE #310] Expose `clap`'s shell completion generation methods via CLI #162

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opened 2026-03-02 23:45:06 +03:00 by kerem · 0 comments

kerem commented

2026-03-02 23:45:06 +03:00

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Originally created by @ed9w2in6 on GitHub (Dec 4, 2023).
Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/aome510/spotify-player/issues/310

Who, What, and Why

As a user,
I want shell completion,
so that I do not need to memorise the CLI or rely on the CLI's help utility.
--> This allows a smoother CLI usage experience and potentially further improves CLI discoverability.

Specific scenarios:

subcommand completion
- there are a lot of subcommands, will be great to be able to search through them and list them all out temporarily with shell completions
option completion
- same reasoning as above
argument completion
- subcommands such as spotify_player get key <key> have arguments with specific values. Since they are nicely named but long, completion can speed this up by reducing risk of typo.

shell completion: custom TAB-completion available for some shells that requires custom script provided by the CLI program
some shells: clap_complete 4.4.4 provides bash, elvish, fish, powershell and zsh

How (roughly)

new dependencies

clap_complete: https://docs.rs/clap_complete/latest/clap_complete/index.html
- clap = "4.4.10" requires clap_complete, our master branch is at clap = "4.4.10" as of [2023-12-04]

implementation directions

provide subcommand that prints to stdout
- The documentation above included an example implementation that prints completion script to stdout.
generate at build time
- The example for generate_to included an implementation that generates completions within the build.rs script during build time: https://docs.rs/clap_complete/latest/clap_complete/generator/fn.generate_to.html

When

NOT urgent.
The CLI is already very much usable at the current state.

Other informations

spotify-tui uses implementation direction 1, but they are using clap = "2.33.3":
github.com/Rigellute/spotify-tui@c4dcf6b9fd/src/main.rs (L171-L185)
There was an issue with the said feature for clap = "2.33.3" BUT it seems to be fixed since (clap = "4.3.11", clap_complete = "4.3.2"): https://github.com/clap-rs/clap/issues/1822

Originally created by @ed9w2in6 on GitHub (Dec 4, 2023). Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/aome510/spotify-player/issues/310 ## Who, What, and Why As a user, I want **shell completion**, so that I do not need to memorise the CLI or rely on the CLI's help utility. --> This allows a smoother CLI usage experience and potentially further improves CLI discoverability. Specific scenarios: + _subcommand_ completion - there are a lot of subcommands, will be great to be able to search through them and list them all out temporarily with shell completions + _option_ completion - same reasoning as above + _argument_ completion - subcommands such as `spotify_player get key <key>` have arguments with specific values. Since they are nicely named but long, completion can speed this up by reducing risk of typo. **shell completion**: custom TAB-completion available for **some shells** that requires custom script provided by the CLI program **some shells**: `clap_complete 4.4.4` provides `bash`, `elvish`, `fish`, `powershell` and `zsh` ## How (roughly) ### new dependencies + `clap_complete`: https://docs.rs/clap_complete/latest/clap_complete/index.html - `clap = "4.4.10"` requires `clap_complete`, our master branch is at `clap = "4.4.10"` as of [2023-12-04] ### implementation directions 1. provide subcommand that prints to stdout - The [documentation above](https://docs.rs/clap_complete/latest/clap_complete/index.html) included an example implementation that prints completion script to stdout. 2. generate at build time - The example for `generate_to` included an implementation that generates completions within the `build.rs` script during build time: https://docs.rs/clap_complete/latest/clap_complete/generator/fn.generate_to.html ## When NOT urgent. The CLI is already very much usable at the current state. ## Other informations + `spotify-tui` uses implementation direction 1, but they are using `clap = "2.33.3"`: https://github.com/Rigellute/spotify-tui/blob/c4dcf6b9fd8318017acbdd7ec005955e26cf2794/src/main.rs#L171-L185 + There was an issue with the said feature for `clap = "2.33.3"` BUT it _seems to be fixed_ since (`clap = "4.3.11"`, `clap_complete = "4.3.2"`): https://github.com/clap-rs/clap/issues/1822