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Tab completion (winget)

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The winget command line tool offers a complete command to provide context-sensitive tab completion. It supports completion of command names, argument names, and argument values, dependent on the current command line state.

Enable tab completion

To enable tab completion with winget, you must add the following script to your $PROFILE in PowerShell.

  1. Open PowerShell and enter the following command to open your $PROFILE in Notepad: notepad.exe $PROFILE

  2. Copy and paste the following script into the $PROFILE file that has opened in Notepad:

    Register-ArgumentCompleter -Native -CommandName winget -ScriptBlock {
    param($wordToComplete, $commandAst, $cursorPosition)
        [Console]::InputEncoding = [Console]::OutputEncoding = $OutputEncoding = [System.Text.Utf8Encoding]::new()
        $Local:word = $wordToComplete.Replace('"', '""')
        $Local:ast = $commandAst.ToString().Replace('"', '""')
        winget complete --word="$Local:word" --commandline "$Local:ast" --position $cursorPosition | ForEach-Object {
            [System.Management.Automation.CompletionResult]::new($_, $_, 'ParameterValue', $_)
        }
}

  3. Save the $PROFILE with your script. Then close and reopen PowerShell. Once PowerShell has been reopened, winget tab completion will be enabled.

Examples of tab completion

Repeated presses of tab (⇥) will result in cycling through the possible values.

Input Result Reason
winget ⇥ winget install install is the first command below the root
winget sh⇥ winget show show is the first command that starts with sh
winget source l⇥ winget source list list is the first sub-command of source that starts with l
winget -⇥ winget --version --version is the first argument defined for the root
winget install power⇥ winget install "Power Toys" "Power Toys" is the first package whose Id, Name, or Moniker starts with power
winget install "Power Toys" --version ⇥ winget install "Power Toys" --version 0.19.2 0.19.2 is the highest version of Power Toys at the time of writing

Command Reference

The complete command takes 3 required arguments:

Argument Description
--word The current word that is being completed; the token that the cursor is located within. Can be empty to indicate no current value at the cursor, but if provided, it must appear as a substring in the command line.
--commandline The entire current command line, including winget. See the examples above; everything but the tab character (⇥) should be provided to this argument.
--position The current position of the cursor in the command line. Can be greater than the length of the command line string to indicate at the end.

When a word value is provided, the completion operates in replacement mode. It will suggest completions that would fit correctly at this location that also start with the given word value.

When a word value is not provided (an empty value is provided for word, ex. --word=), the completion operates in insertion mode. It will suggest completions that would fit as a new value in the cursor's location.

Based on the arguments, the completions suggested can be one of:

  1. A sub command :: The cursor is located just after a command and there are sub commands available.
  2. An argument specifier :: The cursor is not positioned after an argument specifier that expects a value, and there are arguments available.
  3. An argument value :: The cursor is positioned after an argument specifier that expects a value, or a positional argument is expected.

After evaluating all of these cases, the potential completions are output, one on each line. If the completion string contains a space, it is wrapped in quotations.