Skip to content
MelMel
Terminal

Autocomplete & suggestions

Ghost completions from your history and filesystem as you type.

As you type in the prompt, Mel renders the most likely completion as ghost text after your cursor, ending in a small → ⌄ chip. Press → (right arrow) with the cursor at the end of your input to accept it. Keep typing and the ghost updates; ignore it and it costs nothing.

Where suggestions come from

Mel tries sources in priority order and shows the first hit:

  1. This session — the most recent command in this pane that extends what you've typed.
  2. Shell history — your ~/.zsh_history or ~/.bash_history, most recent first, deduplicated. Your pre-Mel muscle memory works on day one.
  3. Filesystem completion — the last token of your input is completed against the real filesystem. Completed directories get a trailing /, so pressing → repeatedly descends into subfolders.
  4. AI suggestion — when the local chain has nothing, Mel can ask for an AI-predicted next command (debounced after a short typing pause, in the background). Toggle this with AI ghost suggestions in Settings.

Filesystem completion details

  • For cd, only directories are offered.
  • Dotfiles are hidden unless your partial token starts with ..
  • Matching is case-sensitive, so the ghost always literally extends what you typed.

cd validation

History is only useful if it's still true. Plain cd <path> candidates from history are validated against the pane's current directory before being suggested — a cd to a directory that no longer exists (or doesn't resolve from here) is never offered.

Accepting

→ accepts only when your cursor is at the end of the input; mid-line, the arrow moves the cursor as usual. After accepting a directory, press → again to keep completing deeper.

Turning it off

Settings → AI has Show input hints (disables the ghost and hint text entirely) and AI ghost suggestions (disables just the AI source, keeping session/history/filesystem completion).

Related