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consult.el - Consulting completing-read

This package provides various commands based on the Emacs completion function completing-read, in particular a more advanced buffer switching command and a variant of Swiper. The commands are compatible with completion-systems based on the standard Emacs API, e.g., the Emacs builtin Icomplete and Selectrum. If Icomplete is used, it is recommended to install Icomplete-vertical. The goal is to keep the completion-system specifics in this package to a minimum.

Note that if you use Ivy or Helm, you don't need Consult, since both packages already bring their own rich set of additional commands.

Note that there is the Marginalia package, which can be combined with Consult. The marginalia-mode enriches the completion display with documentation strings. The Marginalia package has been extracted from Embark and Consult since both packages provided minibuffer annotations.

Screenshots

consult-mark

consult-mark

consult-line

consult-line

consult-outline

consult-outline

marginalia-mode (formerly consult-annotate-mode)

marginalia-mode

Available commands

Most provided commands follow the naming scheme consult-thing.

Virtual Buffers

  • consult-buffer (-other-window, -other-frame): Enhanced version of switch-to-buffer with support for virtual buffers. Supports live preview and recursive editing while previewing. If Selectrum is used consult-buffer supports prefixes for narrowing. You can type b SPC, f SPC, m SPC and v SPC in order to narrow to buffers, files, bookmarks and views respectively. Unfortunately this is (not yet?) supported by the generic completing-read implementation.
  • consult-bookmark: Select or create bookmark. You might prefer the more powerful consult-buffer instead, which includes bookmarks.
  • consult-recent-file (-other-window, -other-frame): Select a recent files. You might prefer the more powerful consult-buffer instead, which includes recent files.

Editing

  • consult-register: Select from list of registers.
  • consult-yank, consult-yank-pop: Enhanced version of yank and yank-pop which allows selecting from the kill-ring. Live preview is supported when selecting from the kill-ring.
  • consult-kmacro: Select macro from the macro ring and execute it.

Help/Discoverability

  • consult-apropos: Replacement for apropos with completion.

Note that there is the Marginalia package, which provides marginalia-mode. Enabling this mode annotates completions with richer information (e.g. M-x, describe-face, describe-symbol, helpful-function, …).

Histories

  • consult-command-history: Select a command from the command-history.
  • consult-history: Insert a string from the current buffer history. This command can be invoked from the minibuffer. In that case the history stored in the minibuffer-history-variable is used.

Jumping and Search

  • consult-line (-symbol-at-point, -from-isearch): Select from matching lines. Supports live preview and recursive editing of the preview. There are two variants, which search for the symbol at point and for the most recent isearch string respectively.
  • consult-mark: Jump to a marker in the mark-ring. Supports live preview and recursive editing of the preview.
  • consult-outline: Jump to a heading of the outline. Supports live preview and recursive editing of the preview.

Miscellaneous

  • consult-file-externally: Select a file and open it externally, e.g. using xdg-open on Linux.
  • consult-multi-occur: Replacement for multi-occur which uses completing-read-multiple.
  • consult-completion-in-region: Function which can be used as completion-in-region-function. This way, the minibuffer completion UI will be used for completion-at-point. This function is particularily useful in combination with Icomplete-vertical, since Icomplete does not provide its own completion-in-region-function. In contrast, Selectrum already comes with its own function.
  • consult-minor-mode-menu: Enable/disable minor mode.
  • consult-theme: Select a theme and disable all currently enabled themes. Supports live preview of the theme while scrolling through the candidates.

Live previews

Some of the commands support live previews. For example when you scroll through the items of consult-line, the buffer will jump to the corresponding position. It is possible to jump back and forth between the minibuffer and the buffer to perform recursive editing while a search is ongoing. In case you do not like live previews or find them distracting, for each of the commands supporting preview, there is a customizable variable which allows disabling the preview. In order for live previews to work you must enable consult-preview-mode.

Package configuration

It is recommended to manage package configurations with use-package. The Consult package only provides commands and does not add any keybindings. In order to use the enhanced commands, you must configure the keybindings yourself.

;; Example configuration for Consult
(use-package consult
  ;; Replace bindings. Lazily loaded due to use-package.
  :bind (("C-c h" . consult-history)
         ("C-c o" . consult-outline)
         ("C-x b" . consult-buffer)
         ("C-x 4 b" . consult-buffer-other-window)
         ("C-x 5 b" . consult-buffer-other-frame)
         ("C-x r x" . consult-register)
         ("C-x r b" . consult-bookmark)
         ("M-g o" . consult-outline) ;; "M-s o" is a good alternative
         ("M-g m" . consult-mark)    ;; "M-s m" is a good alternative
         ("M-g l" . consult-line)    ;; "M-s l" is a good alternative
         ("M-s m" . consult-multi-occur)
         ("M-y" . consult-yank-pop)
         ("<help> a" . consult-apropos))

  ;; The :init configuration is always executed (Not lazy!)
  :init

  ;; Replace functions (consult-multi-occur is a drop-in replacement)
  (fset 'multi-occur #'consult-multi-occur)

  ;; Configure other variables and modes in the :config section, after lazily loading the package
  :config

  ;; Optionally enable previews. Note that individual previews can be disabled
  ;; via customization variables.
  (consult-preview-mode))

;; Optionally enable richer annotations using the Marginalia package
(use-package marginalia
  ;; The :init configuration is always executed (Not lazy!)
  :init

  ;; Must be in the :init section of use-package such that the mode gets
  ;; enabled right away. Note that this forces loading the package.
  (marginalia-mode))

Configuration settings

Variable Def Description
consult-line-numbers-widen t Show absolute line numbers when narrowing is active.
consult-mode-histories … Mode-specific history variables
consult-preview-buffer t Enable buffer preview during selection
consult-preview-line t Enable line preview during selection
consult-preview-mark t Enable mark preview during selection
consult-preview-outline t Enable outline preview during selection
consult-preview-theme t Enable theme preview during selection
consult-preview-yank t Enable yank preview during selection
consult-themes nil List of themes to be presented for selection

Acknowledgements

You probably guessed from the name that this package took inspiration from Counsel by Oleh Krehel. Note that we are not yet on the same level as Counsel in terms of covered functionality.

Some of the commands found in this package originated in the Selectrum wiki.

Advice and useful discussions:

Code contributions: