diff --git a/bin/main.ml b/bin/main.ml
index 2221cf4..dd66912 100644
--- a/bin/main.ml
+++ b/bin/main.ml
@@ -10,10 +10,12 @@ let usage () =
     {|inshellah - nushell completions engine
 
 Usage:
-  inshellah index PREFIX... [--dir PATH]
+  inshellah index PREFIX... [--dir PATH] [--ignore FILE] [--help-only FILE]
       Index completions into a directory of JSON/nu files.
       PREFIX is a directory containing bin/ and share/man/.
       Default dir: $XDG_CACHE_HOME/inshellah
+      --ignore FILE     skip listed commands entirely
+      --help-only FILE  skip manpages for listed commands, use --help instead
   inshellah complete CMD [ARGS...] [--dir PATH] [--system-dir PATH]
       Nushell custom completer. Outputs JSON completion candidates.
       Falls back to --help resolution if command is not indexed.
@@ -396,7 +398,7 @@ let help_resolve_par ?(timeout=200) cmd rest name =
    Each child handles one binary completely (including subcommand resolution)
    and marshals results back via pipe. Children use help_resolve_par
    which forks per subcommand for parallelism. *)
-let cmd_index bindirs mandirs ignorelist dir =
+let cmd_index bindirs mandirs ignorelist help_only dir =
   ensure_dir dir;
   let done_cmds = ref SSet.empty in
   let n_results = ref 0 in
@@ -410,7 +412,9 @@ let cmd_index bindirs mandirs ignorelist dir =
         then manpaged_commands mandir else SSet.empty in
       let max_jobs = num_cores () in
       let classified = Array.map (fun name ->
-        if SSet.mem name manpaged || SSet.mem name ignorelist then (name, Skip)
+        if SSet.mem name ignorelist then (name, Skip)
+        else if SSet.mem name help_only then (name, classify_binary bindir name)
+        else if SSet.mem name manpaged then (name, Skip)
         else (name, classify_binary bindir name)
       ) bins in
       let pending = ref [] in
@@ -505,7 +509,9 @@ let cmd_index bindirs mandirs ignorelist dir =
             let files = Sys.readdir subdir in
             Array.sort String.compare files;
             Array.iter (fun file ->
-              match process_manpage (Filename.concat subdir file) with
+              let base_cmd = cmd_name_of_manpage file in
+              if SSet.mem base_cmd help_only then ()
+              else match process_manpage (Filename.concat subdir file) with
               | None -> ()
               | Some (cmd, result, subs) ->
                 if not (SSet.mem cmd !done_cmds) then begin
@@ -665,12 +671,13 @@ let load_ignorelist path =
   with _ -> SSet.empty
 
 let parse_index_args args =
-  let rec go prefixes dir ignore = function
-    | [] -> (List.rev prefixes, dir, ignore)
-    | "--dir" :: path :: rest -> go prefixes path ignore rest
-    | "--ignore" :: path :: rest -> go prefixes dir (SSet.union ignore (load_ignorelist path)) rest
-    | prefix :: rest -> go (prefix :: prefixes) dir ignore rest in
-  go [] (default_store_path ()) SSet.empty args
+  let rec go prefixes dir ignore help_only = function
+    | [] -> (List.rev prefixes, dir, ignore, help_only)
+    | "--dir" :: path :: rest -> go prefixes path ignore help_only rest
+    | "--ignore" :: path :: rest -> go prefixes dir (SSet.union ignore (load_ignorelist path)) help_only rest
+    | "--help-only" :: path :: rest -> go prefixes dir ignore (SSet.union help_only (load_ignorelist path)) rest
+    | prefix :: rest -> go (prefix :: prefixes) dir ignore help_only rest in
+  go [] (default_store_path ()) SSet.empty SSet.empty args
 
 let parse_dir_args args =
   let rec go user_dir system_dirs rest_args = function
@@ -683,11 +690,11 @@ let parse_dir_args args =
 let () =
   match Array.to_list Sys.argv |> List.tl with
   | "index" :: rest ->
-    let (prefixes, dir, ignorelist) = parse_index_args rest in
+    let (prefixes, dir, ignorelist, help_only) = parse_index_args rest in
     if prefixes = [] then (Printf.eprintf "error: index requires at least one prefix dir\n"; exit 1);
     let bindirs = List.map (fun p -> Filename.concat p "bin") prefixes in
     let mandirs = List.map (fun p -> Filename.concat p "share/man") prefixes in
-    cmd_index bindirs mandirs ignorelist dir
+    cmd_index bindirs mandirs ignorelist help_only dir
   | "complete" :: rest ->
     let (user_dir, system_dirs, spans) = parse_dir_args rest in
     cmd_complete spans user_dir system_dirs
diff --git a/nix/module.nix b/nix/module.nix
index 8d41026..8e538b2 100644
--- a/nix/module.nix
+++ b/nix/module.nix
@@ -51,6 +51,16 @@ in
       '';
     };
 
+    helpOnlyCommands = lib.mkOption {
+      type = lib.types.listOf lib.types.str;
+      default = [ ];
+      example = [ "nix" ];
+      description = ''
+        list of command names to skip manpage parsing for,
+        using --help scraping instead
+      '';
+    };
+
     snippet = lib.mkOption {
       type = lib.types.str;
       readOnly = true;
@@ -65,12 +75,14 @@ in
         destDir = "$out${cfg.completionsPath}";
         ignoreFile = pkgs.writeText "inshellah-ignore" (lib.concatStringsSep "\n" cfg.ignoreCommands);
         ignoreFlag = lib.optionalString (cfg.ignoreCommands != [ ]) " --ignore ${ignoreFile}";
+        helpOnlyFile = pkgs.writeText "inshellah-help-only" (lib.concatStringsSep "\n" cfg.helpOnlyCommands);
+        helpOnlyFlag = lib.optionalString (cfg.helpOnlyCommands != [ ]) " --help-only ${helpOnlyFile}";
       in
       ''
         mkdir -p ${destDir}
 
         if [ -d "$out/bin" ] && [ -d "$out/share/man" ]; then
-          ${inshellah} index "$out" --dir ${destDir}${ignoreFlag} \
+          ${inshellah} index "$out" --dir ${destDir}${ignoreFlag}${helpOnlyFlag} \
             2>/dev/null || true
         fi