update documentation for generate command and NixOS module

Rewrote nushell-integration.md to cover the three-strategy pipeline,
module wrapping, and the generate command. Simplified
runtime-completions.md. Added nixos.md with detailed explanation of
the build-time generation phases, module options, and troubleshooting.
This commit is contained in:
atagen 2026-03-21 02:12:52 +11:00
parent 7f0ec8ab4d
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# NixOS integration
inshellah provides a NixOS module that automatically generates nushell
completions for all installed packages at system build time.
## Enabling
```nix
# In your flake.nix outputs:
{
nixosConfigurations.myhost = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
modules = [
inshellah.nixosModules.default
{
programs.inshellah.enable = true;
}
];
};
}
```
Or if importing the module directly:
```nix
# configuration.nix
{ pkgs, ... }: {
imports = [ ./path/to/inshellah/nix/module.nix ];
programs.inshellah = {
enable = true;
package = pkgs.inshellah; # or your local build
};
}
```
## What happens at build time
The module hooks into `environment.extraSetup`, which runs during the
system profile build (the `buildEnv` that creates `/run/current-system/sw`).
At that point, all system packages are merged, so `$out/bin` contains every
executable and `$out/share/man` contains every manpage.
inshellah runs a single command:
```
inshellah generate $out/bin $out/share/man -o $out/share/nushell/vendor/autoload
```
This executes a three-phase pipeline:
### Phase 1: Native completion detection (parallel)
For each executable, inshellah scans the ELF binary for the string
`completion`. If found, it probes common patterns like
`CMD completions nushell` to see if the program can generate its own
nushell completions. Native output is used verbatim — these are always
higher quality than parsed completions.
Programs like `niri`, and any Clap/Cobra tool with nushell support,
are handled this way.
### Phase 2: Manpage parsing (sequential)
For commands not covered by Phase 1, inshellah parses manpages from
man1 (user commands) and man8 (sysadmin commands). It handles:
- GNU `.TP` style (coreutils, help2man)
- `.IP` style (curl, hand-written)
- `.PP`+`.RS`/`.RE` style (git, DocBook)
- Nix3 bullet+hyperlink style (`nix run`, `nix build`, etc.)
- Deroff fallback for unusual formats
SYNOPSIS sections are parsed to detect subcommands: `git-commit.1`
generates `export extern "git commit"`, not `export extern "git-commit"`.
### Phase 3: --help fallback (parallel)
Remaining executables without manpages get `--help` (or `-h`) called
with a 200ms timeout. ELF binaries are pre-scanned for the `-h` string
to skip those that don't support help flags. Shell scripts are run
directly (they're fast). Execution is parallelized to available cores.
### Output
Each command gets its own `.nu` file in the vendor autoload directory,
module-wrapped:
```nu
module git-completions {
export extern "git commit" [
--all(-a) # Automatically stage modified and deleted files
--message(-m): string # Use the given msg as the commit message
...
]
}
use git-completions *
```
Nushell built-in commands (ls, cd, cp, mv, etc.) are excluded since
nushell provides its own completions.
### Performance
On a typical NixOS system (~950 executables, ~1600 manpages):
- Total time: ~4-10 seconds
- Native gzip decompression (camlzip, no process spawning)
- Parallel --help with core-scaled forking
- ELF string scanning to skip ~15% of binaries
## Module options
```nix
programs.inshellah = {
enable = true;
# The inshellah package (set automatically by the flake module)
package = pkgs.inshellah;
# Where to place generated .nu files
# Default matches nushell's vendor autoload convention
generatedCompletionsPath = "/share/nushell/vendor/autoload";
};
```
## Troubleshooting
**Completions not appearing**: Ensure nushell discovers the vendor
autoload path. Check `$env.NU_VENDOR_AUTOLOAD_DIRS` or verify that
`/run/current-system/sw/share` is in `$XDG_DATA_DIRS`.
**Missing completions for a specific command**: Check if it's a nushell
built-in (`help commands | where name == "thecommand"`). Built-ins are
excluded because nushell serves its own completions for them.
**Stale completions after update**: Completions regenerate on every
`nixos-rebuild`. If a command changed its flags, rebuild to pick up
the changes.
**Build-time errors**: Generation failures are non-fatal (`|| true`).
Check `journalctl` for the build log if completions are missing.

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# Using inshellah completions in nushell
inshellah generates nushell completions from three sources (in priority order):
1. **Native generators** — programs that can emit nushell completions directly
2. **Manpages** — groff/troff manpage parsing
3. **`--help` output** — parsing help text as a fallback
Each command gets a module-wrapped `.nu` file suitable for nushell's autoload.
## Quick start
Generate completions for a single command:
```sh
# From a manpage
inshellah manpage /usr/share/man/man1/git.1.gz > git.nu
# From --help output
inshellah help rg > rg.nu
# Pipe --help text directly
curl --help | inshellah parse-help curl > curl.nu
```
## Full system generation
The `generate` command runs all three strategies across an entire system:
```sh
mkdir -p ~/completions
inshellah generate /usr/bin /usr/share/man -o ~/completions
```
This produces one `.nu` file per command in the output directory. Each file
is module-wrapped:
```nu
module git-completions {
export extern "git" [
--all(-a)
--verbose(-v)
...
]
}
use git-completions *
```
Programs that provide their own nushell completion generators (e.g.
`niri completions nushell`) are detected automatically and their native
output is used instead of parsing.
## NixOS module
Enable automatic completion generation at system build time:
```nix
{
imports = [ ./path/to/inshellah/nix/module.nix ];
programs.inshellah.enable = true;
}
```
This runs `inshellah generate` during the system profile build,
producing per-command `.nu` files in nushell's vendor autoload path.
Completions are available immediately with no manual configuration.
The module uses a three-phase pipeline:
1. Scans executables in `$out/bin` for native nushell completion support
2. Parses manpages from `$out/share/man` (man1 and man8 sections)
3. Falls back to `--help` parsing for unmanpaged executables
All phases run with ELF binary scanning to skip executables that don't
contain help flags, parallel execution scaled to available cores, and
200ms timeouts.
## Loading completions manually
### Option A: Autoload directory (recommended)
Nushell automatically sources `.nu` files from vendor autoload paths
(discovered via `$XDG_DATA_DIRS`) and `~/.config/nushell/autoload/`.
```sh
mkdir -p ~/.config/nushell/autoload
inshellah generate /usr/bin /usr/share/man -o ~/.config/nushell/autoload
```
### Option B: Batch to stdout
For simpler setups, the `manpage-dir` command writes all completions to
stdout (without module wrapping):
```sh
inshellah manpage-dir /usr/share/man > ~/.config/nushell/autoload/completions.nu
```
## What gets generated
Each command produces a nushell `extern` block with flags, parameter
types, and descriptions extracted from the source:
```nu
export extern "rg" [
--regexp(-e): string # A pattern to search for
--file(-f): path # Search for patterns from the given file
--count(-c) # Only show the count of matching lines
--color: string # Controls when to use color
--max-depth: int # Limit the depth of directory traversal
]
```
Subcommand manpages (e.g. `git-commit.1`) are detected via SYNOPSIS
parsing and generate the correct nushell name (`git commit` not
`git-commit`).
Nushell built-in commands (ls, cd, mv, etc.) are excluded since nushell
provides its own completions for these.

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# Runtime completion caching
For commands not covered by build-time generation, inshellah can generate
completions on first tab-press and cache the result.
## Setup
Add an external completer to your nushell config that calls inshellah
on cache miss:
```nu
# ~/.config/nushell/autoload/inshellah-completer.nu
const INSHELLAH_CACHE = ($nu.home-path | path join ".cache" "inshellah")
def inshellah-complete [spans: list<string>] {
if ($spans | length) == 0 { return [] }
mkdir $INSHELLAH_CACHE
let max_depth = [($spans | length) 5] | math min
mut cmd_spans = []
for depth in (1..($max_depth)) {
let candidate = ($spans | first $depth)
let cache_key = ($candidate | str join "-")
let cache_file = ($INSHELLAH_CACHE | path join $"($cache_key).nu")
if ($cache_file | path exists) {
$cmd_spans = $candidate
break
}
try {
let result = (run-external "inshellah" "help" ...($candidate) | complete)
if $result.exit_code == 0 and ($result.stdout | str length) > 10 {
$result.stdout | save -f $cache_file
$cmd_spans = $candidate
break
}
}
}
if ($cmd_spans | length) > 0 {
let cache_key = ($cmd_spans | str join "-")
let cache_file = ($INSHELLAH_CACHE | path join $"($cache_key).nu")
if ($cache_file | path exists) { source $cache_file }
}
}
```
Wire it in:
```nu
# ~/.config/nushell/config.nu
$env.config.completions.external = {
enable: true
completer: {|spans| inshellah-complete $spans }
}
```
## How it works
When you type `docker compose up --<TAB>`:
1. Nushell calls the completer with `spans = ["docker", "compose", "up", "--"]`
2. The completer tries progressively deeper prefixes as cache keys
3. On cache miss, runs `inshellah help docker compose up`
4. Caches the result; all subsequent completions are instant
First tab-press latency is ~100-200ms. Depth is capped at 5 levels.
## Cache management
```sh
rm -rf ~/.cache/inshellah/ # Clear all
ls ~/.cache/inshellah/ # List cached
inshellah help docker run > ~/.cache/inshellah/docker-run.nu # Regenerate one
```
## When to use this vs build-time generation
The NixOS module (`programs.inshellah.enable = true`) handles most commands
at build time. Runtime caching is useful for:
- Commands installed outside the system profile (cargo, pip, npm, go)
- Subcommand completions at arbitrary depth
- Systems without the NixOS module