Quickstart¶

This tour assumes you've installed Commando and wired up the shell integration. We'll go from an empty prompt to a fully assembled command in under a minute.

1. Summon the launcher¶

Press Ctrl+G at any prompt (or just run commando). You'll see a fuzzy search list, ranked by frecency. Type to filter across cheats, project commands, bookmarks, and history at once — each word you type is matched independently, so you can mix a tag, title, description word, or command token in any order. Then press Enter to put the command on your prompt:

Searching “status”, selecting git status, and it lands on the prompt — nothing runs until you press Enter.

The list, annotated:

  p  docker compose up -d            docker compose up -d
  p  npm build                       npm run build
❯ c  Search git log                  git log [--author=<author>] [-n <count>] -- <file>
scope: all────────────────────────────────────────────3/42 commando
Search git log by author for a file.
git log [--author=<author>] [-n <count>] -- <file>
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
❯ log auth▊
↑↓ move  ←→ edit  ⏎ select  tab scope  ^b bookmark  esc quit

Want just one source? Lead the query with a : prefix — :c for cheats, :p for project commands, :h for history, :b for bookmarks — or press Tab to cycle through the scopes. See The TUI for the details.

2. Fill in the variables¶

Select an entry with Enter. If it has variables, Commando opens a fill-in form with a command preview that updates as you type:

╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ Search git log                                         │
│ command:                                               │
│   git log -n 20 -- <file>                              │
│                                                        │
│ params:                                                │
│   author (optional) = (skipped)                        │
│   count (optional) = 20                                │
│ ❯ file (required, multi) = ‹unset›                     │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
    helper.go
❯ ◯ main.go
❯ file (multi) = ▊
↑↓ candidates  space toggle  ⏎ run  ^p/^n params  ^d clear

Working the form:

• Type a value, or use Up/Down to pick from candidates.
• Optional fields show [skip] — press Ctrl+S to skip, and the whole [...] fragment vanishes from the command (no dangling flags).
• Multi-select fields let you toggle several values with Space.
• Move within text with Left/Right; move between fields with Ctrl+P/Ctrl+N. Tab jumps to the next required field.

3. Review and run¶

On the last field, Enter finishes assembly. The command is placed on your shell prompt:

$ git log -n 20 -- "a.go" "b.go"▊

Nothing has run yet. Review, edit if you like, then press Enter yourself. This is the core of Commando's design — the shell owns execution, so your cd, environment variables, and aliases all keep working.

commando search --exec

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