GNU ELPA: company

Company is a modular completion framework.  Modules for retrieving completion
candidates are called backends, modules for displaying them are frontends.

Company comes with many backends, e.g. `company-etags'.  These are
distributed in separate files and can be used individually.

Enable `company-mode' in all buffers with M-x global-company-mode.  For
further information look at the documentation for `company-mode' (C-h f
company-mode RET).

If you want to start a specific backend, call it interactively or use
`company-begin-backend'.  For example:
M-x company-abbrev will prompt for and insert an abbrev.

To write your own backend, look at the documentation for `company-backends'.
Here is a simple example completing "foo":

(defun company-my-backend (command &optional arg &rest ignored)
  (interactive (list 'interactive))
  (pcase command
    (`interactive (company-begin-backend 'company-my-backend))
    (`prefix (company-grab-symbol))
    (`candidates (list "foobar" "foobaz" "foobarbaz"))
    (`meta (format "This value is named %s" arg))))

Sometimes it is a good idea to mix several backends together, for example to
enrich gtags with dabbrev-code results (to emulate local variables).  To do
this, add a list with both backends as an element in `company-backends'.

History of user-visible changes

2026-07-21 (1.1.0)

• company-tooltip-minimum-width has a new value: 15.
• company-tooltip-maximum-width: same, 100.
• company-tooltip-width-grow-only learned how to grow only up to particular size (implemented in company--create-lines). The default value is 50.
• company-childframe gets enabled by default on NS/Mac/W32/PGTK systems, and on all others (notably X11 builds) when Emacs is at least 31.1. (#1542).
• Default key bindings have been changed, moving company-show-doc-buffer and company-show-location to M-h and M-g (from C-h/<f1> and C-w) (#1537). The previous bindings still work, but show a warning and will be removed after the next release. To undo that change locally, do:

(with-eval-after-load 'company
  (define-key company-active-map (kbd "C-h") #'company-show-doc-buffer)
  (define-key company-active-map (kbd "<f1>") #'company-show-doc-buffer)
  (define-key company-active-map (kbd "C-w") #'company-show-location)
  (define-key company-active-map (kbd "M-h") nil)
  (define-key company-active-map (kbd "M-g") nil))

• company-search-regexp-function defaults to company-search-words-in-any-order-regexp. Another alternative value for it was also added: company-search-flex-words-in-any-order-regexp, working somewhat similar to the popular completion style Orderless.
• The search faces in the popup inherit from isearch.
• New option company-global-minibuffer for completion during eval-expression (M-:). The "pseudo-tooltip" frontend is not supported by this feature, company-childframe is recommended instead.
• C-M-i is bound to company-complete-common when completion is active.
• Search mode input is displayed at the bottom of the popup (#1535).
• New built-in frontend using "real graphical" widget for the popup (#1525). This also adds a hard dependency on the package posframe.
• The default light theme colors were changed to a more neutral set, and the scroll bar background was removed (#1529).
• The minimum required version of Emacs is now 26.1.
• TAB binding changed to company-complete-common-or-cycle, and backtab binding to company-cycle-backward (#1499).
• Completion is restarted if it enters a new "field" at the end, as indicated by the adjust-boundaries backend action (#1497). This benefits file name (and directory) completion. The user option company-files-chop-trailing-slash has been removed, and the post-completion handler in company-files has been removed as well.
• Handle the case when the current c-a-p-f function changes mid-session (#1494).

2024-09-23 (1.0.2)

• More reliable cache expiration (at the beginning of completion).

2024-09-21 (1.0.1)

• Fix for failover from a backend group to the next backend.

2024-09-21 (1.0.0)

• company-complete-common now performs generalized expand common part completion when the backend supports that. In particular, for completion-at-point-functions it queries completion-try-completion. company-dabbrev-code and company-etags also do that when completion-styles support is enabled.
• company-dabbrev-other-buffers and company-dabbrev-code-other-buffers can now take a function as its value (#1485)
• Completion works in the middle of a symbol (#1474).
• New user option company-inhibit-inside-symbols. Set it to t to switch ... ...