WinGet Command Line Tab Completion

Sources:

• winget-cli/doc/Completion.md at master · microsoft/winget-cli

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Overview

WinGet offers a complete command that can be leveraged by your shell to provide context sensitive tab completion. It allows for completion of command names, argument names, and argument values, dependent on the current command line state.

NOTE

This feature was released in v0.1.42241 Preview . Please update if you are on an older build.

Examples

NOTE

These examples assume that the tab completion in your shell works similar to PowerShell; repeated presses of tab will result in cycling through the possible values.

Input	Result	Reason
winget ⇥	winget install	install is the first command below the root
winget sh⇥	winget show	show is the first command that starts with sh
winget source l⇥	winget source list	list is the first sub-command of source that starts with l
winget -⇥	winget --version	--version is the first argument defined for the root
winget install power⇥	winget install "Power Toys"	"Power Toys" is the first package whose Id, Name, or Moniker starts with power
winget install "Power Toys" --version ⇥	winget install "Power Toys" --version 0.19.2	0.19.2 is the highest version of Power Toys at the time of writing

PowerShell

You can add the argument completer to your $PROFILE , which will enable it in all subsequent PowerShell sessions.

For more information, see How to create your profile and Profiles and execution policy

Here is the PowerShell command to add to your $PROFILE

Register-ArgumentCompleter -Native -CommandName winget -ScriptBlock {
    param($wordToComplete, $commandAst, $cursorPosition)
        [Console]::InputEncoding = [Console]::OutputEncoding = $OutputEncoding = [System.Text.Utf8Encoding]::new()
        $Local:word = $wordToComplete.Replace('"', '""')
        $Local:ast = $commandAst.ToString().Replace('"', '""')
        winget complete --word="$Local:word" --commandline "$Local:ast" --position $cursorPosition | ForEach-Object {
            [System.Management.Automation.CompletionResult]::new($_, $_, 'ParameterValue', $_)
        }
}

Command Reference

Argument	Description
--word	The current word that is being completed; the token that the cursor is located within. Can be empty to indicate no current value at the cursor, but if provided, it must appear as a substring in the command line.
--commandline	The entire current command line, including winget. See the examples above; everything but the tab character (⇥) should be provided to this argument.
--position	The current position of the cursor in the command line. Can be greater than the length of the command line string to indicate at the end.

When a word value is provided, the completion operates in replacement mode. It will suggest completions that would fit correctly at this location that also start with the given word value. When a word value is not provided (an empty value is provided for word, ex. --word= ), the completion operates in insertion mode. It will suggest completions that would fit as a new value in the cursor’s location.

Based on the arguments, the completions suggested can be one of:

1. A sub command :: The cursor is located just after a command and there are sub commands available.
2. An argument specifier :: The cursor is not positioned after an argument specifier that expects a value, and there are arguments available.
3. An argument value :: The cursor is positioned after an argument specifier that expects a value, or a positional argument is expected.

After evaluating all of these cases, the potential completions are output, one on each line. If the completion string contains a space, it is wrapped in quotations.

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Appendix

Note created on 2024-04-24 and last modified on 2024-04-24.

Backlinks

LIST FROM [[WinGet Command Line Tab Completion]] AND -"CHANGELOG" AND -"01-SLIPBOX/WinGet Command Line Tab Completion"

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