How to setup ohmyzsh with autocomplete and autosuggestion.

Imran ShaikhImran Shaikh
4 min read

Hey there! ๐Ÿ‘‹ Iโ€™m Imran Shaikh, a Full Stack Developer at Automatio.ai. Today, Iโ€™ll show you how to set up Oh My Zsh with autocomplete and autosuggestion to supercharge your terminal โšก๏ธ.

What is zsh and ohmyzsh ?

Zsh is a powerful, customizable Unix shell that enhances the command-line experience with better completion and scripting features. Oh My Zsh builds on this by adding plugins, themes, and tools to streamline workflows and boost productivity.

Enough introduction lets get started

  1. Make sure you have curl or wget installed and git. If not then run the following command. For this tutorial i will be using curl.

     sudo apt install curl
    
     sudo apt install git
    
  2. Then we need to install zsh shell and make it default shell, from Ubuntu terminal run the following command.

     sudo apt install zsh
    
     sudo chsh -s $(which zsh) $(whoami)
    
  3. Now we need to install oh my zsh run the following command

     sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
    
  4. Now replace the content of `~/.zshrc` with the following

     # If you come from bash you might have to change your $PATH.
     # export PATH=$HOME/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH
    
     # Path to your oh-my-zsh installation.
     export ZSH="$HOME/.oh-my-zsh"
    
     # Set name of the theme to load --- if set to "random", it will
     # load a random theme each time oh-my-zsh is loaded, in which case,
     # to know which specific one was loaded, run: echo $RANDOM_THEME
     # See https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/wiki/Themes
     ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell"
    
     # Set list of themes to pick from when loading at random
     # Setting this variable when ZSH_THEME=random will cause zsh to load
     # a theme from this variable instead of looking in $ZSH/themes/
     # If set to an empty array, this variable will have no effect.
     # ZSH_THEME_RANDOM_CANDIDATES=( "robbyrussell" "agnoster" )
    
     # Uncomment the following line to use case-sensitive completion.
     # CASE_SENSITIVE="true"
    
     # Uncomment the following line to use hyphen-insensitive completion.
     # Case-sensitive completion must be off. _ and - will be interchangeable.
     # HYPHEN_INSENSITIVE="true"
    
     # Uncomment one of the following lines to change the auto-update behavior
     # zstyle ':omz:update' mode disabled  # disable automatic updates
     # zstyle ':omz:update' mode auto      # update automatically without asking
     # zstyle ':omz:update' mode reminder  # just remind me to update when it's time
    
     # Uncomment the following line to change how often to auto-update (in days).
     # zstyle ':omz:update' frequency 13
    
     # Uncomment the following line if pasting URLs and other text is messed up.
     # DISABLE_MAGIC_FUNCTIONS="true"
    
     # Uncomment the following line to disable colors in ls.
     # DISABLE_LS_COLORS="true"
    
     # Uncomment the following line to disable auto-setting terminal title.
     # DISABLE_AUTO_TITLE="true"
    
     # Uncomment the following line to enable command auto-correction.
     # ENABLE_CORRECTION="true"
    
     # Uncomment the following line to display red dots whilst waiting for completion.
     # You can also set it to another string to have that shown instead of the default red dots.
     # e.g. COMPLETION_WAITING_DOTS="%F{yellow}waiting...%f"
     # Caution: this setting can cause issues with multiline prompts in zsh < 5.7.1 (see #5765)
     # COMPLETION_WAITING_DOTS="true"
    
     # Uncomment the following line if you want to disable marking untracked files
     # under VCS as dirty. This makes repository status check for large repositories
     # much, much faster.
     # DISABLE_UNTRACKED_FILES_DIRTY="true"
    
     # Uncomment the following line if you want to change the command execution time
     # stamp shown in the history command output.
     # You can set one of the optional three formats:
     # "mm/dd/yyyy"|"dd.mm.yyyy"|"yyyy-mm-dd"
     # or set a custom format using the strftime function format specifications,
     # see 'man strftime' for details.
     # HIST_STAMPS="mm/dd/yyyy"
    
     # Would you like to use another custom folder than $ZSH/custom?
     # ZSH_CUSTOM=/path/to/new-custom-folder
    
     # Which plugins would you like to load?
     # Standard plugins can be found in $ZSH/plugins/
     # Custom plugins may be added to $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/
     # Example format: plugins=(rails git textmate ruby lighthouse)
     # Add wisely, as too many plugins slow down shell startup.
     # plugins=(git z zsh-autosuggestions)
     plugins=(git ssh-agent zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting fast-syntax-highlighting zsh-autocomplete)
    
     source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh
    
     # User configuration
    
     # export MANPATH="/usr/local/man:$MANPATH"
    
     # You may need to manually set your language environment
     # export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
    
     # Preferred editor for local and remote sessions
     # if [[ -n $SSH_CONNECTION ]]; then
     #   export EDITOR='vim'
     # else
     #   export EDITOR='mvim'
     # fi
    
     # Compilation flags
     # export ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64"
    
     # Set personal aliases, overriding those provided by oh-my-zsh libs,
     # plugins, and themes. Aliases can be placed here, though oh-my-zsh
     # users are encouraged to define aliases within the ZSH_CUSTOM folder.
     # For a full list of active aliases, run `alias`.
     #
     # Example aliases
     # alias zshconfig="mate ~/.zshrc"
     # alias ohmyzsh="mate ~/.oh-my-zsh"
     bindkey '^I^I' autosuggest-accept
    
  5. Install the following plugins

     git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions
    
     git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting
    
     git clone https://github.com/zdharma-continuum/fast-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/fast-syntax-highlighting
    
     git clone --depth 1 -- https://github.com/marlonrichert/zsh-autocomplete.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/zsh-autocomplete
    

Your terminal setup is now complete! ๐ŸŽ‰ Feel free to share your thoughts or any issues you encounter in the comments below. For more customization options, check out the official pages for Zsh and Oh My Zsh. Happy coding! ๐Ÿš€

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Written by

Imran Shaikh
Imran Shaikh

Full Stack Developer with a passion for Blockchain and Web3. Skilled in React, Next.js, TypeScript, Rust, and Solana. I specialize in building seamless user experiences and creating smart contracts for the Solana ecosystem. Always eager to learn, grow, and solve challenging problems. Let's innovate together!