tmux-complete

A tmux plugin that provides emacs-style word completion with cycling functionality, similar to Alt+/ in emacs.

Features

• Word completion: Complete partial words by searching through all panes
• Cycling: Press the completion key multiple times to cycle through matches
• Scrollback support: Option to search through entire scrollback history
• Path component extraction: Handles both full paths and individual components
• Fuzzy selection (fzf): Pick a completion from an fzf popup instead of cycling

Installation

1. Clone this repository:

   git clone https://github.com/machacd/tmux-complete ~/.tmux/plugins/tmux-complete

2. Add this line to your ~/.tmux.conf:

   run-shell ~/.tmux/plugins/tmux-complete/tmux-completion.tmux

3. Reload tmux configuration:

   tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf

Usage

Default Key Bindings

• prefix + / - Complete word using visible pane content
• prefix + ? - Complete word using entire scrollback history (larger word pool)
• prefix + F - Open an fzf popup to fuzzy-select a word from visible panes

How It Works

1. Type a partial word (e.g., test)
2. Press the completion key (e.g., prefix + /)
3. The word completes to the first match (e.g., testing_function)
4. Press the completion key again to cycle to the next match (e.g., test_variable)
5. Continue cycling through all available matches

Configuration

Custom Key Bindings

You can customize the key bindings by setting these options in your ~/.tmux.conf:

# Change the basic completion key (default: "/")
set -g @completion_key "/"

# Change the scrollback completion key (default: "?") 
set -g @completion_scrollback_key "?"

# Change the fzf popup key (default: "F")
set -g @completion_fzf_key "F"

Word Matching

The plugin searches for words that:

• Contain alphanumeric characters, underscores, dots, slashes, hyphens, and equals signs
• Are at least 2 characters long
• Start with your typed partial word

It extracts both:

• Full paths: /home/user/file.txt
• Components: home, user, file, txt

Performance

• Visible content: Fast, searches only currently visible pane content
• Scrollback content: Slower but comprehensive, searches entire history

Requirements

• tmux 2.0+
• bash
• Standard Unix utilities (grep, sed, awk)
• fzf and tmux 3.2+ — only for the prefix + F fuzzy popup

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

TODO

• Show word search time in the status bar
• Sort words in cycle by order of appearance