Configure Shell Completions

Enable tab completion for promptarena and packc commands in your shell. Shell completions provide intelligent suggestions for commands, flags, and even dynamic values like scenario names and providers.

Features

PromptKit’s shell completions include:

• Command and subcommand completion - Tab through available commands
• Flag completion - Complete flag names with -- prefix
• Dynamic value completion - Context-aware suggestions for:
  • --scenario - Lists scenarios from your config.arena.yaml
  • --provider - Lists configured providers
  • --role - Lists self-play role configurations
  • --region - Suggests prompt regions
  • --format - Output format options (json, junit, html, markdown)
  • --section - Config sections for config-inspect
  • --template - Available project templates for init

Bash

Generate and Install

# Create completions directory if needed
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions

# Generate completion scripts
promptarena completion bash > ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/promptarena
packc completion bash > ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/packc

# Reload your shell or source the files
source ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/promptarena
source ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/packc

Alternative: System-wide Installation

# Requires sudo
sudo promptarena completion bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/promptarena
sudo packc completion bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/packc

Add to .bashrc (Permanent)

Add to your ~/.bashrc:

# PromptKit completions
if command -v promptarena &> /dev/null; then
    source <(promptarena completion bash)
fi
if command -v packc &> /dev/null; then
    source <(packc completion bash)
fi

Zsh

Generate and Install

# Create completions directory
mkdir -p ~/.zsh/completions

# Generate completion scripts
promptarena completion zsh > ~/.zsh/completions/_promptarena
packc completion zsh > ~/.zsh/completions/_packc

Add to .zshrc

Add to your ~/.zshrc (before compinit):

# Add custom completions directory to fpath
fpath=(~/.zsh/completions $fpath)

# Initialize completions
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit

Alternative: Oh My Zsh

If using Oh My Zsh, place completions in the custom completions directory:

promptarena completion zsh > ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/promptarena/_promptarena
packc completion zsh > ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/packc/_packc

Fish

# Generate completion scripts
promptarena completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/promptarena.fish
packc completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/packc.fish

Fish will automatically load completions from this directory.

PowerShell

Generate and Load

# Generate completion scripts
promptarena completion powershell > promptarena.ps1
packc completion powershell > packc.ps1

# Load completions (current session)
. ./promptarena.ps1
. ./packc.ps1

Add to Profile (Permanent)

Add to your PowerShell profile ($PROFILE):

# PromptKit completions
promptarena completion powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression
packc completion powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression

Docker

If you’re using the demo Docker image, completions are pre-configured. For custom Docker images, add to your Dockerfile:

# Install bash-completion
RUN apk add --no-cache bash-completion

# Generate and install completions
RUN mkdir -p /etc/bash_completion.d && \
    promptarena completion bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/promptarena && \
    packc completion bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/packc

# Source completions in bashrc
RUN echo 'source /etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh' >> /root/.bashrc && \
    echo 'source /etc/bash_completion.d/promptarena' >> /root/.bashrc && \
    echo 'source /etc/bash_completion.d/packc' >> /root/.bashrc

Using Completions

Once configured, use Tab to complete:

# Complete commands
promptarena r<Tab>        # → promptarena run

# Complete flags
promptarena run --sc<Tab> # → promptarena run --scenario

# Complete dynamic values (reads from config.arena.yaml)
promptarena run --scenario <Tab>
# → basic-chat  edge-cases  multi-turn  ...

promptarena run --provider <Tab>
# → openai  anthropic  google  mock

promptarena config-inspect --section <Tab>
# → prompts  providers  scenarios  tools  selfplay  judges  defaults  validation

promptarena init --template <Tab>
# → quick-start  customer-support  code-assistant  multimodal  mcp-integration

Troubleshooting

Completions Not Working

1. Verify the binary is in PATH:

   which promptarena

2. Check completion script was generated:

   promptarena completion bash | head -20

3. Ensure bash-completion is installed:

   # macOS
   brew install bash-completion@2
   
   # Ubuntu/Debian
   apt install bash-completion
   
   # Alpine
   apk add bash-completion

4. Reload your shell:

   exec $SHELL

Dynamic Completions Not Showing Values

Dynamic completions (scenarios, providers, roles) require a valid config.arena.yaml in the current directory or parent directories. If no config is found, completions will return empty results.

# Check if config is found
cd /path/to/your/project
ls config.arena.yaml

# Test completion
promptarena __complete run --scenario ""

See Also

• Install PromptArena - Installation options
• CLI Commands Reference - Full command documentation