Shell Command

Run a shell command straight from the Noctalia launcher. Type /sh followed by any command and press Enter to open it in your default terminal — a real, interactive shell with live output, TUI apps, and your own native history.

No hardcoded completion table: suggestions come from the shell's own completion engine and your command history, so they stay in sync with what's actually on your system. Commands run through your own $SHELL in interactive mode, so aliases, functions and environment from your rc config are available.

Features

• Instant command run — /sh ls -la ~/projects opens the command in your default terminal.
• Fish-style autosuggestions — completions fetched live from Fish's completion engine (fish -c 'complete -C "<query>"'), falling back to bash compgen -c when Fish isn't installed. Type /sh git st and get git status, git stash, etc. Suggestions dynamically follow your system — no hardcoded list to maintain.
• Snap-complete — when a prefix has exactly one completion, the "Run" entry jumps to the completed command, so one Enter runs it instead of fill-then-run.
• History — previously run commands are remembered (per-plugin state, capped at 100) and offered as you type, most recent first.
• Snippets — user-defined commands shown when /sh is typed with an empty query.
• Folder jump — /sh cd lists subdirectories and lets you drill into nested folders. Select the "Open in:" row to launch a terminal inside the current directory.
• Navigate and run in one launch — /sh cd ~/proj && make changes into that directory and runs the command, so tools open in the right folder.
• Suggestion fills, explicit launch runs — completion/history/snippet rows fill the input (so you can keep typing or drill deeper); only "Run:" and "Open in:" rows actually launch a terminal.
• Stay-open terminal — after a fast command (e.g. git status) the terminal holds its output, shows a [Press Enter to continue] prompt, then drops you into an interactive shell.
• Workspace-aware — when a default workspace is set, commands start in that directory.

Plugin

Field	Value
ID	weinguyen/shell-command
Entry	Launcher provider: provider
Launcher Prefix	/sh

Requirements

• Noctalia v5.0.0 or higher.
• runInTerminal needs a default terminal configured in Noctalia.
• A shell at $SHELL (falls back to sh).
• Optional: Fish (richer completions; falls back to bash otherwise).
• ls for the folder-jump listing.

Declared in plugin.toml dependencies: sh, ls, plus fish and bash for the completion fallback (the user's own $SHELL at runtime is whatever shell they have configured).

Usage

Open the launcher and type /sh followed by a command:

/sh
/sh ls -la ~/projects
/sh git status

Press Enter to run the command in your default terminal.

With an empty query, recent commands and configured snippets are offered. As you type a command, suggestions from the shell's completion engine appear under the exact command you typed. Selecting a suggestion fills the input; run the filled command by pressing Enter again (or use snap-complete when only one completion matches).

Navigate inside a folder first

/sh cd                  # list top-level folders
/sh cd proj             # list folders starting with "proj"
/sh cd ~/Builds/        # list everything directly inside ~/Builds

Folder rows let you drill deeper (each selection fills the path with a trailing slash so you can keep going). The top "Open in:" row launches a terminal inside the current parent directory.

Run a command in a directory

/sh cd ~/Builds && make

Navigates into ~/Builds and runs make there. Paths may contain spaces, quotes and \ escapes.

Settings

Setting	Type	Default	Description
default_workspace	folder	""	Working directory commands (and the cd listing) start in. Empty uses $HOME.
snippets	string_list	[]	Commands shown when /sh is typed with an empty query.

Notes

• Commands run in a real interactive terminal, so tools like vim, htop and tmux work normally.
• Commands execute via $SHELL -ic, so aliases and functions from your rc config are available. Note that completion — not alias expansion — is what powers suggestions; an alias defined only transitively may still need its underlying command.
• Completion suggestions update dynamically as Fish completions and installed binaries change — there is no hardcoded list to maintain.
• History is stored per-plugin (XDG state directory), capped at 100 entries, deduplicated, most recent command first.

Development

• shell_provider.luau — the launcher provider entry.
• translations/en.json, translations/vi.json — user-facing strings.