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.

Screenshots

consult-annotate-mode

consult-mark

consult-line

consult-outline

Available commands

Most provided commands follow the naming scheme consult-thing. Furthermore there is consult-annotate-mode which enriches the completion display with documentation strings.

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.

Help/Discoverability

consult-apropos: Replacement for apropos with completion.
consult-annotate-mode: Enable this mode to annotates completions with richer information (e.g. M-x, describe-face, describe-symbol, helpful-function, etc).

Histories

consult-command-history: Select a command from the command-history.
consult-minibuffer-history: Insert a string from the minibuffer-history.

Jumping and Search

consult-line: Jump to a line matching the selected text. Supports live preview and recursive editing of the preview.
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.
consult-multi-occur: Replacement for multi-occur.

Miscellaneous

consult-minor-mode: 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.

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
(use-package consult
  ;; Replace bindings
  :bind (("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))

  :init

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

  :config

  ;; Enable richer annotations during completion.
  (consult-annotate-mode)

  ;; Enable richer annotations for M-x.
  ;; I have this disabled by default, since I don't want to be flooded with information.
  ;; Annotations are only enabled by default for the describe-* class of functions.
  ;; * consult-annotate-symbol: Annotate with the documentation string
  ;; * consult-annotate-command-only-binding: Annotate only with the keybinding
  ;; * consult-annotate-command: Annotate with the keybinding and the documentation string
  ;; (add-to-list 'consult-annotate-alist
  ;;              '(execute-extended-command . consult-annotate-command))
  )

Configuration settings

Variable	Def	Description
consult-annotate-alist	…	Functions which should get a richer completion display.
consult-line-numbers-widen	t	Show absolute line numbers when narrowing is active.
consult-preview-buffer	t	Enable buffer preview during selection
consult-preview-theme	t	Enable theme preview during selection
consult-preview-mark	t	Enable mark preview during selection
consult-preview-line	t	Enable line preview during selection
consult-preview-outline	t	Enable outline preview during selection
consult-themes	nil	List of themes to be presented for selection

Acknowledgments

You probably guessed from the name that this package is inspired by and partially derived from Counsel (Author Oleh Krehel, Copyright Free Software Foundation, Inc.). Note that we are far from counsel in terms of covered functionality. Furthermore some of the commands found in this package were taken from the Selectrum wiki.

hkjels / consult