To install this package, run in Emacs:
M-x package-install RET corfu RET
Corfu enhances completion at point with a small completion popup. The current
candidates are shown in a popup below or above the point. Corfu is the
minimalistic completion-in-region
counterpart of the Vertico minibuffer UI.
Corfu is a small package, which relies on the Emacs completion facilities and
concentrates on providing a polished completion UI. Completions are either
provided by commands like dabbrev-completion
or by pluggable backends
(completion-at-point-functions
, Capfs). Most programming language major modes
implement a Capf. Furthermore the language server packages, Eglot and Lsp-mode,
use Capfs which talk to the LSP server to retrieve the completions. Corfu does
not include its own completion backends. The Emacs built-in Capfs and the Capfs
provided by other programming language packages are usually sufficient. A few
additional Capfs and completion utilities are provided by the Cape package.
NOTE: Corfu uses child frames to show the popup and falls back to the default
setting of the completion-in-region-function
on non-graphical displays. If you
want to use Corfu in the terminal, install the package corfu-terminal, which
provides an alternative overlay-based display.
corfu-auto
).TAB
at any time.TAB
and selected with RET
.corfu-preview-current
).corfu-preview-current
).M-SPC
(configurable via
corfu-quit-at-boundary
and corfu-separator
).annotation-function
, affixation-function
).
Corfu is available from GNU ELPA, such that it can be installed directly via
package-install
. After installation, the global minor mode can be enabled with
M-x global-corfu-mode
. In order to configure Corfu and other packages in your
init.el, you may want to use use-package
.
Corfu is highly flexible and customizable via corfu-*
customization variables,
such that you can adapt it precisely to your requirements. However in order to
quickly try out the Corfu completion package, it should be sufficient to
activate global-corfu-mode
. You can experiment with manual completion for
example in an Elisp buffer or in an Eshell or Shell buffer. For auto completion,
set corfu-auto=t
before turning on global-corfu-mode
.
Here is an example configuration:
(use-package corfu ;; Optional customizations ;; :custom ;; (corfu-cycle t) ;; Enable cycling for `corfu-next/previous' ;; (corfu-auto t) ;; Enable auto completion ;; (corfu-separator ?\s) ;; Orderless field separator ;; (corfu-quit-at-boundary nil) ;; Never quit at completion boundary ;; (corfu-quit-no-match nil) ;; Never quit, even if there is no match ;; (corfu-preview-current nil) ;; Disable current candidate preview ;; (corfu-preselect 'prompt) ;; Preselect the prompt ;; (corfu-on-exact-match nil) ;; Configure handling of exact matches ;; (corfu-scroll-margin 5) ;; Use scroll margin ;; Enable Corfu only for certain modes. ;; :hook ((prog-mode . corfu-mode) ;; (shell-mode . corfu-mode) ;; (eshell-mode . corfu-mode)) ;; Recommended: Enable Corfu globally. ;; This is recommended since Dabbrev can be used globally (M-/). ;; See also `corfu-exclude-modes'. :init (global-corfu-mode)) ;; A few more useful configurations... (use-package emacs :init ;; TAB cycle if there are only few candidates (setq completion-cycle-threshold 3) ;; Emacs 28: Hide commands in M-x which do not apply to the current mode. ;; Corfu commands are hidden, since they are not supposed to be used via M-x. ;; (setq read-extended-command-predicate ;; #'command-completion-default-include-p) ;; Enable indentation+completion using the TAB key. ;; `completion-at-point' is often bound to M-TAB. (setq tab-always-indent 'complete))
Dabbrev completion is based on completion-in-region
and can be used with Corfu.
You may want to swap the dabbrev-completion
with the dabbrev-expand
key for
easier access, if you prefer completion. Also take a look at the cape-dabbrev
completion at point function provided by my Cape package.
;; Use Dabbrev with Corfu! (use-package dabbrev ;; Swap M-/ and C-M-/ :bind (("M-/" . dabbrev-completion) ("C-M-/" . dabbrev-expand)) ;; Other useful Dabbrev configurations. :custom (dabbrev-ignored-buffer-regexps '("\\.\\(?:pdf\\|jpe?g\\|png\\)\\'")))
If you start to configure the package more deeply, I recommend to give the Orderless completion style a try for filtering. Orderless completion is different from the familiar prefix TAB completion. Corfu can be used with the default completion styles. The use of Orderless is not a necessity.
;; Optionally use the `orderless' completion style. (use-package orderless :init ;; Configure a custom style dispatcher (see the Consult wiki) ;; (setq orderless-style-dispatchers '(+orderless-dispatch) ;; orderless-component-separator #'orderless-escapable-split-on-space) (setq completion-styles '(orderless basic) completion-category-defaults nil completion-category-overrides '((file (styles . (partial-completion))))))
The basic
completion style is specified as fallback in addition to orderless
in
order to ensure that completion commands which rely on dynamic completion
tables, e.g., completion-table-dynamic
or completion-table-in-turn
, work
correctly. See +orderless-dispatch
in the Consult wiki for an advanced Orderless
style dispatcher. Additionally enable partial-completion
for file path
expansion. partial-completion
is important for file wildcard support. Multiple
files can be opened at once with find-file
if you enter a wildcard. You may also
give the initials
completion style a try.
See also the Corfu Wiki and the Cape manual for additional Capf configuration tips. The Eglot and Lsp-mode configurations are documented in the wiki. For more general documentation read the chapter about completion in the Emacs manual. If you want to create your own Capfs, you can find documentation about completion in the Elisp manual.
Auto completion is disabled by default, but can be enabled by setting
corfu-auto=t
. Furthermore you may want to configure Corfu to quit completion
eagerly, such that the completion popup stays out of your way when it appeared
unexpectedly.
;; Enable auto completion and configure quitting (setq corfu-auto t corfu-quit-no-match 'separator) ;; or t
I recommend to experiment a bit with the various settings and key bindings to find a configuration which works for you. There is no one size fits all solution. Some people like auto completion, some like manual completion, some want to cycle with TAB and some with the arrow keys.
In case you like aggressive auto completion settings, where the completion popup
appears immediately, I recommend to use a cheap completion style like basic
,
which performs prefix filtering. In this case Corfu completion should still be
very fast in buffers with efficient completion backends. You can try the
following settings in an Elisp buffer or the Emacs scratch buffer.
;; Aggressive completion, cheap prefix filtering. (setq-local corfu-auto t corfu-auto-delay 0 corfu-auto-prefix 0 completion-styles '(basic))
If you want to combine fast prefix filtering and Orderless filtering you can
still do that by defining a custom Orderless completion style via
orderless-define-completion-style
. We use a custom style dispatcher, which
enables prefix filtering for input shorter than 4 characters. Note that such a
setup is quite advanced. Please refer to the Orderless documentation and source
code for further details.
(defun orderless-fast-dispatch (word index total) (and (= index 0) (= total 1) (length< word 4) `(orderless-regexp . ,(concat "^" (regexp-quote word))))) (orderless-define-completion-style orderless-fast (orderless-style-dispatchers '(orderless-fast-dispatch)) (orderless-matching-styles '(orderless-literal orderless-regexp))) (setq-local corfu-auto t corfu-auto-delay 0 corfu-auto-prefix 0 completion-styles '(orderless-fast))
Corfu can be used for completion in the minibuffer, since it relies on child
frames to display the candidates. By default, global-corfu-mode
does not
activate corfu-mode
in the minibuffer, to avoid interference with specialised
minibuffer completion UIs like Vertico or Mct. However you may still want to
enable Corfu completion for commands like M-:
(eval-expression
) or M-!
(shell-command
), which read from the minibuffer. Activate corfu-mode
only if
completion-at-point
is bound in the minibuffer-local keymap to achieve this
effect.
(defun corfu-enable-in-minibuffer () "Enable Corfu in the minibuffer if `completion-at-point' is bound." (when (where-is-internal #'completion-at-point (list (current-local-map))) ;; (setq-local corfu-auto nil) ;; Enable/disable auto completion (setq-local corfu-echo-delay nil ;; Disable automatic echo and popup corfu-popupinfo-delay nil) (corfu-mode 1))) (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook #'corfu-enable-in-minibuffer)
You can also enable Corfu more generally for every minibuffer, as long as no completion UI is active. In the following example we check for Mct and Vertico. Furthermore we ensure that Corfu is not enabled if a password is read from the minibuffer.
(defun corfu-enable-always-in-minibuffer () "Enable Corfu in the minibuffer if Vertico/Mct are not active." (unless (or (bound-and-true-p mct--active) (bound-and-true-p vertico--input) (eq (current-local-map) read-passwd-map)) ;; (setq-local corfu-auto nil) ;; Enable/disable auto completion (setq-local corfu-echo-delay nil ;; Disable automatic echo and popup corfu-popupinfo-delay nil) (corfu-mode 1))) (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook #'corfu-enable-always-in-minibuffer 1)
When completing in the Eshell I recommend conservative local settings without auto completion, such that the completion behavior is similar to widely used shells like Bash, Zsh or Fish.
(add-hook 'eshell-mode-hook (lambda () (setq-local corfu-auto nil) (corfu-mode)))
When pressing RET
while the Corfu popup is visible, the corfu-insert
command
will be invoked. This command does inserts the currently selected candidate, but
it does not send the prompt input to Eshell or the comint process. Therefore you
often have to press RET
twice which feels like an unnecessary double
confirmation. Fortunately it is easy to improve this! In my configuration I
define the advice corfu-send-shell
which sends the candidate after insertion.
(defun corfu-send-shell (&rest _) "Send completion candidate when inside comint/eshell." (cond ((and (derived-mode-p 'eshell-mode) (fboundp 'eshell-send-input)) (eshell-send-input)) ((and (derived-mode-p 'comint-mode) (fboundp 'comint-send-input)) (comint-send-input)))) (advice-add #'corfu-insert :after #'corfu-send-shell)
Shell completion uses the flexible Pcomplete mechanism internally, which allows
you to program the completions per shell command. If you want to know more, look
into the blog post, which shows how to configure Pcomplete for git commands.
Since Emacs 29, Pcomplete offers the pcomplete-from-help
function which parses
the --help
output of a command and produces completions. This functionality is
similar to the Fish shell, which also takes advantage of --help
to dynamically
generate completions.
Unfortunately Pcomplete had a few technical issues on Emacs 28 and older. We can work around the issues with the Cape library (Completion at point extensions). Cape provides wrappers which sanitize the Pcomplete function. If you use Emacs 28 or older installing these advices is strongly recommend such that Pcomplete works properly. On Emacs 29 the advices are not necessary anymore, since almost all of the related bugs have been fixed. I therefore recommend to remove the advices on Emacs 29 and eventually report any remaining Pcomplete issues upstream, such that they can be fixed at the root.
;; The advices are only needed on Emacs 28 and older. (when (< emacs-major-version 29) ;; Silence the pcomplete capf, no errors or messages! (advice-add 'pcomplete-completions-at-point :around #'cape-wrap-silent) ;; Ensure that pcomplete does not write to the buffer ;; and behaves as a pure `completion-at-point-function'. (advice-add 'pcomplete-completions-at-point :around #'cape-wrap-purify))
Orderless is an advanced completion style that supports multi-component search filters separated by a configurable character (space, by default). Normally, entering characters like space which lie outside the completion region boundaries (words, typically) causes Corfu to quit. This behavior is helpful with auto-completion, which may pop-up when not desired, e.g. on entering a new variable name. Just keep typing and Corfu will get out of the way.
But orderless search terms can contain arbitrary characters; they are also
interpreted as regular expressions. To use orderless, set corfu-separator
(a
space, by default) to the primary character of your orderless component
separator.
Then, when a new orderless component is desired, use M-SPC
(corfu-insert-separator
) to enter the first component separator in the input,
and arbitrary orderless search terms and new separators can be entered
thereafter.
To treat the entire input as Orderless input, you can set the customization
option corfu-quit-at-boundary=t
. This disables the predicate which checks if the
current completion boundary has been left. In contrast, if you always want to
quit at the boundary, simply set corfu-quit-at-boundary=nil
. By default
corfu-quit-at-boundary
is set to separator
which quits at completion boundaries
as long as no separator has been inserted with corfu-insert-separator
.
Finally, there exists the user option corfu-quit-no-match
which is set to
separator
by default. With this setting Corfu stays alive as soon as you start
advanced filtering with a corfu-separator
even if there are no matches, for
example due to a typo. As long as no separator character has been inserted with
corfu-insert-separator
, Corfu will still quit if there are no matches. This
ensures that the Corfu popup goes away quickly if completion is not possible.
In the following we show two configurations, one which works best with auto
completion and one which may work better with manual completion if you prefer to
always use SPC
to separate the Orderless components.
;; Auto completion example (use-package corfu :custom (corfu-auto t) ;; Enable auto completion ;; (corfu-separator ?_) ;; Set to orderless separator, if not using space :bind ;; Another key binding can be used, such as S-SPC. ;; (:map corfu-map ("M-SPC" . corfu-insert-separator)) :init (global-corfu-mode)) ;; Manual completion example (use-package corfu :custom ;; (corfu-separator ?_) ;; Set to orderless separator, if not using space :bind ;; Configure SPC for separator insertion (:map corfu-map ("SPC" . corfu-insert-separator)) :init (global-corfu-mode))
You may be interested in configuring Corfu in TAB-and-Go style. Pressing TAB
moves to the next candidate and further input will then commit the selection.
Note that further input will not expand snippets or templates, which may not be
desired but which leads overall to a more predictable behavior. In order to
force snippet expansion, confirm a candidate explicitly with RET
.
(use-package corfu ;; TAB-and-Go customizations :custom (corfu-cycle t) ;; Enable cycling for `corfu-next/previous' (corfu-preselect 'prompt) ;; Always preselect the prompt ;; Use TAB for cycling, default is `corfu-complete'. :bind (:map corfu-map ("TAB" . corfu-next) ([tab] . corfu-next) ("S-TAB" . corfu-previous) ([backtab] . corfu-previous)) :init (global-corfu-mode))
Sometimes it is useful to transfer the Corfu completion session to the minibuffer, since the minibuffer offers richer interaction features. In particular, Embark is available in the minibuffer, such that you can act on the candidates or export/collect the candidates to a separate buffer. We could add Corfu support to Embark in the future, such that export/collect is possible directly from Corfu. But in my opinion having the ability to transfer the Corfu completion to the minibuffer is an even better feature, since further completion can be performed there.
The command corfu-move-to-minibuffer
is defined here in terms of
consult-completion-in-region
, which uses the minibuffer completion UI via
completing-read
.
(defun corfu-move-to-minibuffer () (interactive) (let ((completion-extra-properties corfu--extra) completion-cycle-threshold completion-cycling) (apply #'consult-completion-in-region completion-in-region--data))) (keymap-set corfu-map "M-m" #'corfu-move-to-minibuffer)
Corfu uses a transient keymap corfu-map
which is active while the popup is
shown. The keymap defines the following remappings and bindings:
move-beginning-of-line
-> corfu-prompt-beginning
move-end-of-line
-> corfu-prompt-end
beginning-of-buffer
-> corfu-first
end-of-buffer
-> corfu-last
scroll-down-command
-> corfu-scroll-down
scroll-up-command
-> corfu-scroll-up
next-line
, down
, M-n
-> corfu-next
previous-line
, up
, M-p
-> corfu-previous
completion-at-point
, TAB
-> corfu-complete
RET
-> corfu-insert
M-g
-> corfu-info-location
M-h
-> corfu-info-documentation
M-SPC
-> corfu-insert-separator
C-g
-> corfu-quit
keyboard-escape-quit
-> corfu-reset
We maintain small extension packages to Corfu in this repository in the
subdirectory extensions/. The extensions are installed together with Corfu if
you pull the package from ELPA. The extensions are inactive by default and can
be enabled manually if desired. Furthermore it is possible to install all of the
files separately, both corfu.el
and the corfu-*.el
extensions. Currently the
following extensions come with the Corfu ELPA package:
corfu-echo-mode
displays a brief candidate documentation in the
echo area.corfu-history-mode
remembers selected candidates and sorts the
candidates by their history position.corfu-indexed-mode
allows you to select indexed candidates with
prefix arguments.See the Commentary of those files for configuration details.
Corfu works well together with all packages providing code completion via the
completion-at-point-functions
. Many modes and packages already provide a Capf
out of the box. Nevertheless you may want to look into complementary packages to
enhance your setup.
corfu-separator
).completion-in-region
commands
are provided by the Cape package. Among others, the package supplies a file
path and a Dabbrev completion backend. Cape provides the cape-company-to-capf
adapter to reuse Company backends in Corfu. Furthermore the function
cape-super-capf
can merge multiple Capfs, such that the candidates of multiple
Capfs are displayed together at the same time.completion-styles
support is more limited and the
completion-at-point
command and the completion-in-region
function do not
invoke Company.consult-completion-in-region
which can be set as completion-in-region-function
such that it handles completion-at-point
. The function works by transferring
the in-buffer completion to the minibuffer. In the minibuffer, the minibuffer
completion UI, for example Vertico takes over. If you prefer to perform all
your completions in the minibuffer consult-completion-in-region
is your best
option.Since this package is part of GNU ELPA contributions require a copyright assignment to the FSF.
corfu-0.35.tar.lz | 2023-Feb-17 | 45.6 KiB |
corfu-0.34.tar.lz | 2022-Dec-03 | 44.7 KiB |
corfu-0.33.tar.lz | 2022-Nov-21 | 44.4 KiB |
corfu-0.31.tar.lz | 2022-Nov-20 | 44.2 KiB |
corfu-0.30.tar.lz | 2022-Nov-19 | 44.2 KiB |
corfu-0.28.tar.lz | 2022-Oct-16 | 40.5 KiB |
corfu-0.27.tar.lz | 2022-Aug-29 | 40.5 KiB |
corfu-0.26.tar.lz | 2022-Jun-27 | 37.5 KiB |
corfu-0.19.tar.lz | 2022-Feb-12 | 32.7 KiB |
corfu-0.18.tar.lz | 2022-Jan-31 | 30.8 KiB |
corfu-0.17.tar.lz | 2021-Dec-31 | 28.4 KiB |
corfu-0.16.tar.lz | 2021-Nov-27 | 27.7 KiB |
corfu-0.9.tar.lz | 2021-Jun-20 | 69.7 KiB |
corfu-0.8.tar.lz | 2021-May-18 | 69.5 KiB |
corfu-0.7.tar.lz | 2021-May-13 | 69.5 KiB |
corfu-0.6.tar.lz | 2021-May-04 | 69.2 KiB |
corfu-0.4.tar.lz | 2021-Apr-28 | 68.5 KiB |
corfu-0.3.tar.lz | 2021-Apr-26 | 68.0 KiB |
corfu-0.2.tar.lz | 2021-Apr-17 | 67.1 KiB |
corfu-0.1.tar.lz | 2021-Apr-17 | 53.5 KiB |
corfu-preselect-first
.corfu-popupinfo-delay
and corfu-echo-delay
: Remove support for value t
.
Instant updates are not recommended. It is still possible to use a small value
for the delay.corfu-excluded-modes
to corfu-exclude-modes
(Naming convention).undo-boundary
, which caused issues with auto completion.corfu-popupinfo
: Take more text into account when computing popup width.corfu-popupinfo
: Change keybindings, remap corfu-info-documentation/location
.corfu-popupinfo
: Add commands corfu-popupinfo-beginning/end
.corfu-popupinfo
: Improve popup placement.corfu-prompt-beginning
and corfu-prompt-end
commands.corfu-preselect
option, deprecate corfu-preselect-first
.cl-defgeneric
internally as mechanism to allow extensions to override
functionality, e.g., the candidate formatting and display.corfu-popupinfo-direction
: Variable must be a list of directions.corfu-default
facecorfu-popupinfo
: Bugfixescorfu-echo
, corfu-quick
: Bugfixes for interaction issue.corfu-popupinfo
: Bugfixes and improvements.corfu-echo
extension from corfu.el
. In order to see echo
messages, enable corfu-echo-mode
. You probably want to enable either
corfu-echo-mode
or corfu-popupinfo-mode
.corfu-echo-documentation
to corfu-echo-delay
.corfu-popupinfo
extension to display candidate documentation and location
in a small child frame next to the candidate menu. This extension has been
contributed by Yuwei Tian who assigned copyright to the FSF. The extension
supersedes Yuwei's corfu-doc
package.