---
id: click-completion
version: "0.5.2"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: aging
---

# click-completion — Fish, Bash, Zsh and PowerShell completion for Click

License: permissive · Maintenance: aging · Downloads: 210.0K/mo

## What it is and what it does

click-completion monkey-patches Click to add shell completion for Bash, Zsh, Fish, and PowerShell. It generates shell-specific activation code and can install it permanently into shell configuration directories. For Fish and Zsh, it also displays help text during completion. The package works by exporting a magic environment variable (_<PROG_NAME>_COMPLETE) that your Click application recognizes and uses to generate completion output.

The package is now in maintenance mode only—no new features are being added. If you are using Click 8.0 or later, Click's native completion support (introduced in that version) is the recommended approach. This package is primarily useful for applications built on older Click versions that need completion support across multiple shells.

Use it for:

- Add Bash completion to a legacy Click CLI tool that cannot upgrade to Click 8.0.
- Enable Fish shell completion with help text display for a Click-based command-line application.
- Provide Zsh completion with argument documentation for a multi-command Click application.
- Generate and install PowerShell completion scripts for a Click tool used in Windows environments.
- Customize completion behavior by implementing the complete method on custom parameter types.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Adds shell completion support (Bash, Zsh, Fish, PowerShell) to Click command-line applications, with help text display for Fish and Zsh.

No—unless you are maintaining a Click application on a version before 8.0. Click 8.0 and later include native completion support that supersedes this package. The package is in maintenance mode, has not been released since 2019, and carries high install friction. For new projects or upgradeable codebases, use Click's built-in completion instead.

## Install

pip install click-completion
uv add click-completion
poetry add click-completion

## Installing click-completion

Before you install: High install friction due to source-only distribution. Package is in maintenance mode only with no new features; last release was 2019-10-15 and last commit 2025-03-25. For Click 8.0 and later, use Click's native completion instead.

License in practice: MIT license is permissive and places no restrictions on use, modification, or distribution.

Quickstart:

import click_completion
click_completion.init()

# Then generate shell code:
code = click_completion.get_code()
# Or install directly:
click_completion.install()

Requires Click (version before 8.0 recommended; Click 8.0+ has native completion). Requires Jinja2. Requires one of: Bash, Zsh, Fish, or PowerShell.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package works correctly with modern Click versions (8.0+) despite the recommendation to use native completion instead.
- Current test coverage and whether the package is actively tested against supported shells.
- Compatibility with recent Python versions, as python_support is unspecified.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: high
- Maintenance: aging
- Downloads: 210.0K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

click shell completion, bash zsh fish completion, click command line completion, powershell completion for click, cli argument completion, shell completion generator, shell-completion, legacy-maintenance

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/click-completion) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/click-completion/)