Fish

The friendly interactive shell. Fish ships its own line editor (not readline), with syntax highlighting, autosuggestions, and abbreviation expansion enabled by default. Most readline-style emacs bindings still work because fish reuses the conventions; the differences are in suggestion-acceptance keys, the history pager, and fish-only widgets like prepend-sudo and edit-command-buffer.

Switch to vi-style editing with fish_vi_key_bindings; revert with fish_default_key_bindings. bind with no arguments lists every active binding; bind --list-modes lists keymaps. fish_config opens the web UI; funced <name> edits a function in $EDITOR.

For shell startup files, universal variables, and abbreviation configuration, see the fish documentation at https://fishshell.com/docs/current/.

Cursor Movement

Key	Action
Ctrl-a	move to start of line (beginning-of-line)
Ctrl-e	move to end of line (end-of-line)
Ctrl-b	move back one character
Ctrl-f	accept autosuggestion (or move forward if none)
Alt-b	move back one word
Alt-f	move forward one word
Alt-Left	move back one path component
Alt-Right	move forward one path component

Autosuggestions

Fish shows the most likely completion in dim grey as you type. Acceptance is the headline keybinding.

Key	Action
Right	accept entire autosuggestion
Ctrl-f	accept entire autosuggestion (same as Right)
Alt-Right	accept next word of autosuggestion
Alt-f	accept next word of autosuggestion
Esc	dismiss current autosuggestion

Editing

Key	Action
Ctrl-d	delete character under cursor (EOF on empty line)
Ctrl-h	delete character before cursor
Backspace	delete character before cursor
Alt-d	delete word forward
Ctrl-w	delete word backward (whitespace-delimited)
Alt-Backspace	delete word backward (alphanumeric-aware)
Ctrl-k	kill (cut) to end of line
Ctrl-u	kill from cursor to start of line
Ctrl-y	yank (paste) last killed text
Alt-y	rotate to previous kill after Ctrl-y
Ctrl-t	transpose character with previous
Alt-t	transpose word with previous
Alt-u	uppercase word from cursor
Alt-l	lowercase word from cursor
Alt-c	capitalize word from cursor
Ctrl-_	undo last edit
Alt-/	redo (after undo)

History

Up / Down search history with the current line as a prefix. Ctrl-r opens the searchable history pager.

Key	Action
Up / Ctrl-p	previous matching history entry (prefix search)
Down / Ctrl-n	next matching history entry
Ctrl-r	open history pager (searchable)
Alt-Up	move to previous token in history
Alt-Down	move to next token in history
Alt-.	insert last argument of previous command
history	print full history
history search <pattern>	search history non-interactively
history delete --exact "<cmd>"	delete a history entry
history merge	merge in writes from other fish sessions

Process Control

Key	Action
Ctrl-c	cancel current line / send SIGINT to foreground
Ctrl-z	suspend foreground process (SIGTSTP)
Ctrl-d	send EOF; exit shell on empty line
Ctrl-l	clear screen (keeps current line)
Ctrl-s	pause terminal output (XOFF)
Ctrl-q	resume terminal output (XON)
Ctrl-\	send SIGQUIT (core dump)

Completion

Tab cycles through completions inline; if there are many, the pager opens. Inside the pager use arrow keys; Enter accepts, Esc cancels.

Key	Action
Tab	complete / cycle next match (opens pager if many)
Shift-Tab	cycle previous match
Esc	close completion pager without selecting
Ctrl-c	close pager without selecting
Enter	accept the highlighted completion
Page Down / Page Up	scroll the pager
Ctrl-s	search next within pager
Ctrl-r	search previous within pager

Fish Specials

Widgets and bindings unique to fish.

Key	Action
Alt-s	prepend sudo to the current command line (prepend-sudo)
Alt-e / Alt-v	edit current command in $EDITOR (edit-command-buffer)
Alt-l	run ls against current word (path listing peek)
Alt-w	run man against current word (help peek)
Alt-p	append | less ; (pager suffix)
Alt-h	history-pager-delete on current entry (in pager)
Ctrl-x	cut current line to the kill ring (whole-line cut)
Ctrl-Space	insert Tab literally (skip suggestion)

Vi Mode

Enable with fish_vi_key_bindings. Two main modes: insert (default after enable) and default (Vim “normal”); visual adds selection. Esc exits insert to default.

Key	Action
Esc	enter default (command) mode
i	insert at cursor
a	append after cursor
A	append at end of line
I	insert at start of line
0 / ^	move to start / first non-blank
$	move to end of line
w / b / e	word forward / back / end
f<c> / F<c>	find next / previous c
x	delete character under cursor
dw / d$ / dd	delete word / to end / whole line
cw / c$ / cc	change word / to end / whole line
yw / y$ / yy	yank word / to end / whole line
p / P	paste after / before cursor
u	undo
v	enter visual mode
V	linewise visual mode
k / j	previous / next history line (in default mode)
/<pat> / ?<pat>	search history backward / forward

Config and Discovery

Command	Action
bind	list every active binding
bind --list-modes	list keymap modes (default, insert, visual, paste)
bind --mode default --key f1 'do-thing'	bind a key in a specific mode
bind \cx 'kill-whole-line'	bind Ctrl-x to a named function
bind --erase \cx	remove a binding
fish_default_key_bindings	revert to emacs-style bindings
fish_vi_key_bindings	switch to vi-style bindings
fish_config	open the configuration web UI
funced <name>	edit a function in $EDITOR
functions <name>	print a function’s definition
functions --names	list every defined function
abbr	list abbreviations
abbr -a gco 'git checkout'	add an abbreviation
stty -a	list terminal-driver shortcuts (intr, susp, erase)