Keyboard shortcuts

Press ← or → to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

Introduction

Like IntelliSense, but for shells!

intelli-shell demo

Welcome to the official guide for IntelliShell. If you find yourself constantly searching your shell history for that one-trick awk command, forgetting the exact flags for tar or ffmpeg, or re-typing long commands with only minor changes, then you've come to the right place.

IntelliShell is a smart command-line bookmark manager designed to solve these exact problems. It helps you save, find, organize, and reuse your most valuable commands directly within your terminal, turning your shell history from a chaotic log into a structured, searchable library.

Key Features

IntelliShell is built with a focus on efficiency and seamless integration:

  • Instant Access: Find and execute commands in seconds with an interactive search UI, triggered by a simple keybinding (ctrl+space).

  • Dynamic Commands: Create powerful command templates using {{variables}}. IntelliShell will prompt you to fill them in on the fly, making your commands reusable for any scenario.

  • Effortless Organization: Use descriptions and hashtags (#work, #gcp) to categorize your commands, making them easy to filter and find.

  • Workspace-Specific Commands: Automatically load and prioritize workspace-specific commands from .intellishell files in your current workspace.

  • Sync & Share: Export your command library to a file, an HTTP endpoint, or a GitHub Gist to back it up or share it with your team.

  • Extensible Knowledge: Instantly boost your library by fetching and importing command examples from the community-driven tldr pages.

How to Use This Book

This documentation is structured into three main sections to help you find what you need quickly:

  • Quick Start If you're new to IntelliShell, start here.

    The guide contains step-by-step tutorials that will take you from installation and basic usage to mastering advanced workflows like shell integration and command syncing.

  • Configuration This section is your reference for personalizing IntelliShell.

    Learn how to change keybindings, customize the theme, and even fine-tune the search-ranking algorithms to make the tool truly your own.

  • Command Line Tool Here you will find a detailed, technical breakdown of every command.

    It's the perfect place for quick lookups when you need to know exactly which flags are available or what a specific option does.

Ready to get started? Let's head over to the Installation page.