Manual Page Search Parameters
sk(1) sk - a command-line fuzzy finder sk(1)

sk - fuzzy finder in rust

sk [options]

sk is a general-purpose command-line fuzzy finder.

Enable exact-match
Search with regular expression instead of fuzzy match
Fuzzy matching algorithm (default: skim_v2)

skim_v2 Almost always the one to choose
skim_v1 The legacy algorithm
clangd the one used by clangd for keyword completion

To ignore case on matching or not. (default smart)

Comma-separated list of field index expressions for limiting search scope. See FIELD INDEX EXPRESSION for the details.
Transform the presentation of each line using field index expressions
Field delimiter regex for --nth and --with-nth (default: AWK-style)

Reverse the order of the search result(normally used together with --no-sort)

Do not sort the search result(normally used together with --tac)

e.g. history | sk --tac --no-sort
Comma-separated list of sort criteria to apply when the scores are tied.

score Score of the fuzzy match algorithm
index Prefers line that appeared earlier in the input stream
begin Prefers line with matched substring closer to the beginning
end Prefers line with matched substring closer to the end
length Prefers line with shorter length

- Each criterion could be negated, e.g. (-index)
- Each criterion should appear only once in the list

Start the finder in the command query
Specify the command to invoke for fetching options
Replace replstr with the selected item
Enable multi-select with tab/shift-tab
Disable multi-select
Comma-separated list of custom key bindings. See KEY BINDINGS for the details.
Disable horizontal scroll
Display sk window below the cursor with the given height instead of using the full screen.
Minimum height when --height is given in percent (default: 10). Ignored when --height is not specified.
Choose the layout (default: default)

default Display from the bottom of the screen
reverse Display from the top of the screen
reverse-list Display from the top of the screen, prompt at the bottom

A synonym for --layout=reverse

Comma-separated expression for margins around the finder.

TRBL Same margin for top, right, bottom, and left
TB,RL Vertical, horizontal margin
T,RL,B Top, horizontal, bottom margin
T,R,B,L Top, right, bottom, left margin

Each part can be given in absolute number or in percentage relative to the terminal size with % suffix.

e.g. sk --margin 10%
sk --margin 1,5%

Display finder info inline with the query
Input prompt (default: '> ')
Command prompt (default: 'c> ')
The given string will be printed as the sticky header. The lines are displayed in the given order from top to bottom regardless of --layout option, and are not affected by --with-nth. ANSI color codes are processed even when --ansi is not set.
The first N lines of the input are treated as the sticky header. When --with-nth is set, the lines are transformed just like the other lines that follow.
Keep the right end of the line visible when it's too long. Effective only when the query string is empty.
Line will start with the start of the matched pattern. Effective only when the query string is empty. Was designed to skip showing starts of paths of rg/grep results.

e.g. sk -i -c "rg {} --color=always" --skip-to-pattern '[^/]*:' --ansi

Do not clear previous items if new command returns empty result. This might be useful to reduce flickering when typing new commands and the half-complete commands are not valid.

This is not default however because similar usecases for grep and rg had already been optimized where empty result of a query do mean "empty" and previous results should be cleared.

If the command fails, send the error messages and show them as items. This option was intended to help debugging interactive commands. It's not enabled by default because the command often fails before we complete the "cmd-query" and error messages would be annoying.

Enable processing of ANSI color codes
Number of spaces for a tab character (default: 8)
Color configuration. The name of the base color scheme is followed by custom color mappings. Ansi color code of -1 denotes terminal default foreground/background color. You can also specify 24-bit color in #rrggbb format.

e.g. sk --color=bg+:24
sk --color=light,fg:232,bg:255,bg+:116,info:27

BASE SCHEME:
(default: dark on 256-color terminal, otherwise 16)


dark Color scheme for dark 256-color terminal
light Color scheme for light 256-color terminal
16 Color scheme for 16-color terminal
bw No colors

COLOR:
fg Text
bg Background
matched|hl Text of highlighted substrings
matched_bg Background of highlighted substrings
current|fg+ Text (current line)
current_bg|bg+ Background (current line)
current_match|hl+ Text of Highlighted substrings (current line)
current_match_bg Background of highlighted substrings (current line)
query Text of Query (the texts after the prompt)
query_bg Background of Query
info Info
border Border of the preview window and horizontal separators (--border)
prompt Prompt
pointer|cursor Pointer to the current line (no effect now)
marker|selected Multi-select marker
spinner Streaming input indicator
header Header

Load search history from the specified file and update the file on completion. When enabled, CTRL-N and CTRL-P are automatically remapped to next-history and previous-history.
Maximum number of entries in the history file (default: 1000). The file is automatically truncated when the number of the lines exceeds the value.
Load command query history from the specified file and update the file on completion. When enabled, CTRL-N and CTRL-P are automatically remapped to next-history and previous-history.
Maximum number of command query entries in the history file (default: 1000). The file is automatically truncated when the number of the lines exceeds the value.

Execute the given command for the current line and display the result on the preview window. {} in the command is the placeholder that is replaced to the single-quoted string of the current line. To transform the replacement string, specify field index expressions between the braces (See FIELD INDEX EXPRESSION for the details).

e.g. sk --preview='head -$LINES {}'
ls -l | sk --preview="echo user={3} when={-4..-2}; cat {-1}" --header-lines=1

sk overrides $LINES and $COLUMNS so that they represent the exact size of the preview window.

A placeholder expression starting with + flag will be replaced to the space-separated list of the selected lines (or the current line if no selection was made) individually quoted.

e.g.
sk --multi --preview='head -10 {+}'
git log --oneline | sk --multi --preview 'git show {+1}'

Note that you can escape a placeholder pattern by prepending a backslash.

Also, {q} is replaced to the current query string. {cq} is replaced to the current command query string. {n} is replaced to zero-based ordinal index of the line. Use {+n} if you want all index numbers when multiple lines are selected

Preview window will be updated even when there is no match for the current query if any of the placeholder expressions evaluates to a non-empty string.

POSITION: (default: right)
up
down
left
right

Determine the layout of the preview window. If the argument ends with :hidden, the preview window will be hidden by default until toggle-preview action is triggered. Long lines are truncated by default. Line wrap can be enabled with :wrap flag.

If size is given as 0, preview window will not be visible, but sk will still execute the command in the background.

+SCROLL[-OFFSET] determines the initial scroll offset of the preview window. SCROLL can be either a numeric integer or a single-field index expression that refers to a numeric integer. The optional -OFFSET part is for adjusting the base offset so that you can see the text above it. It should be given as a numeric integer (-INTEGER), or as a denominator form (-/INTEGER) for specifying a fraction of the preview window height.

e.g.
# Non-default scroll window positions and sizes
sk --preview="head {}" --preview-window=up:30%
sk --preview="file {}" --preview-window=down:2


# Initial scroll offset is set to the line number of each line of
# git grep output *minus* 5 lines (-5)
git grep --line-number '' |
sk --delimiter : --preview 'nl {1}' --preview-window +{2}-5


# Preview with bat, matching line in the middle of the window (-/2)
git grep --line-number '' |
sk --delimiter : \
--preview 'bat --style=numbers --color=always --highlight-line {2} {1}' \
--preview-window +{2}-/2

Start the finder with the given query
Specify the initial query for the command query
Print query as the first line
Filter mode. Do not start interactive finder. It's like a fuzzy-version of grep. skim will output the score and the item to stdout.
Comma-separated list of keys that can be used to complete sk in addition to the default enter key. When this option is set, sk will print the name of the key pressed as the first line of its output (or as the second line if --print-query is also used). The line will be empty if sk is completed with the default enter key. If --expect option is specified multiple times, sk will expect the union of the keys. --no-expect will clear the list.

e.g. sk --expect=ctrl-v,ctrl-t,alt-s --expect=f1,f2,~,@
Read input delimited by ASCII NUL characters instead of newline characters
Print output delimited by ASCII NUL characters instead of newline characters
Do not clear finder interface on exit. If skim was started in full screen mode, it will not switch back to the original screen, so you'll have to manually run tput rmcup to return. This option can be used to avoid flickering of the screen when your application needs to start skim multiple times in order.
-1, --select-1
Automatically select the only match
-0, --exit-0
Exit immediately when there's no match
Synchronous search for multi-staged filtering. If specified, skim will launch ncurses finder only after the input stream is complete.

e.g. sk --multi | sk --sync

Pre-select the first NUM items in the multi-selection mode.
Pre-select the items that matches the REGEX specified in multi-selection mode. Check the doc for the detailed syntax: https://docs.rs/regex/1.4.1/regex/
Pre-select the specified items (separated by newline character) in multi-selection mode.
Pre-select the items read from FILENAME (separated by newline character) in multi-selection mode.

Display version information and exit

Default command to use when input is tty. On *nix systems, sk runs the command with sh -c, so make sure that it's POSIX-compliant.
Default options. e.g. export SKIM_DEFAULT_OPTIONS="--multi

0 Normal exit
1 No match
2 Error
130 Interrupted with CTRL-C or ESC

A field index expression can be a non-zero integer or a range expression ([BEGIN]..[END]). --nth and --with-nth take a comma-separated list of field index expressions.

1 The 1st field
2 The 2nd field
-1 The last field
-2 The 2nd to last field
3..5 From the 3rd field to the 5th field
2.. From the 2nd field to the last field
..-3 From the 1st field to the 3rd to the last field
.. All the fields

Unless specified otherwise, sk will start in "extended-search mode". In this mode, you can specify multiple patterns delimited by spaces, such as: 'wild ^music .mp3$ sbtrkt !rmx

You can prepend a backslash to a space (\ ) to match a literal space character.

A term that is prefixed by a single-quote character (') is interpreted as an "exact-match" (or "non-fuzzy") term. sk will search for the exact occurrences of the string.

A term can be prefixed by ^, or suffixed by $ to become an anchored-match term. Then sk will search for the lines that start with or end with the given string. An anchored-match term is also an exact-match term.

If a term is prefixed by !, sk will exclude the lines that satisfy the term from the result. In this case, sk performs exact match by default.

If you don't prefer fuzzy matching and do not wish to "quote" (prefixing with ') every word, start sk with -e or --exact option. Note that when --exact is set, '-prefix "unquotes" the term.

A single bar character term acts as an OR operator. For example, the following query matches entries that start with core and end with either go, rb, or py.

e.g. ^core go$ | rb$ | py$

You can customize key bindings of sk with --bind option which takes a comma-separated list of key binding expressions. Each key binding expression follows the following format: KEY:ACTION

e.g. sk --bind=ctrl-j:accept,ctrl-k:kill-line

AVAILABLE KEYS: (SYNONYMS)
ctrl-[a-z]
ctrl-space
ctrl-alt-[a-z]
alt-[a-zA-Z]
alt-[0-9]
f[1-12]
enter (ctrl-m)
space
bspace (bs)
alt-up
alt-down
alt-left
alt-right
alt-enter (alt-ctrl-m)
alt-space
alt-bspace (alt-bs)
alt-/
tab
btab (shift-tab)
esc
del
up
down
left
right
home
end
pgup (page-up)
pgdn (page-down)
shift-up
shift-down
shift-left
shift-right
alt-shift-up
alt-shift-down
alt-shift-left
alt-shift-right
or any single character


ACTION: DEFAULT BINDINGS (NOTES):
abort ctrl-c ctrl-q esc
accept enter
append-and-select
backward-char ctrl-b left
backward-delete-char ctrl-h bspace
backward-kill-word alt-bs
backward-word alt-b shift-left
beginning-of-line ctrl-a home
clear-screen ctrl-l
delete-char del
delete-charEOF ctrl-d
deselect-all
down ctrl-j ctrl-n down
end-of-line ctrl-e end
execute(...) (see below for the details)
execute-silent(...) (see below for the details)
forward-char ctrl-f right
forward-word alt-f shift-right
if-non-matched
if-query-empty
if-query-not-empty
ignore
kill-line
kill-word alt-d
next-history (ctrl-n on --history or --cmd-history)
page-down pgdn
page-up pgup
half-page-down
half-page-up
preview-up shift-up
preview-down shift-down
preview-left
preview-right
preview-page-down
preview-page-up
previous-history (ctrl-p on --history or --cmd-history)
select-all
toggle
toggle-all
toggle+down ctrl-i (tab)
toggle-in (--layout=reverse* ? toggle+up : toggle+down)
toggle-out (--layout=reverse* ? toggle+down : toggle+up)
toggle-preview
toggle-preview-wrap
toggle-sort
toggle+up btab (shift-tab)
unix-line-discard ctrl-u
unix-word-rubout ctrl-w
up ctrl-k ctrl-p up
yank ctrl-y

Multiple actions can be chained using + separator.


sk --bind 'ctrl-a:select-all+accept'

With execute(...) action, you can execute arbitrary commands without leaving sk. For example, you can turn sk into a simple file browser by binding enter key to less command like follows.


sk --bind "enter:execute(less {})"

You can use the same placeholder expressions as in --preview.

If the command contains parentheses, sk may fail to parse the expression. In that case, you can use any of the following alternative notations to avoid parse errors.


execute[...]
execute'...'
execute"..."
execute:...

This is the special form that frees you from parse errors as it does not expect the closing character. The catch is that it should be the last one in the comma-separated list of key-action pairs.

sk switches to the alternate screen when executing a command. However, if the command is expected to complete quickly, and you are not interested in its output, you might want to use execute-silent instead, which silently executes the command without the switching. Note that sk will not be responsive until the command is complete. For asynchronous execution, start your command as a background process (i.e. appending &).

With if-query-empty and if-query-not-empty action, you could specify the action to execute depends on the query condition. For example


sk --bind 'ctrl-d:if-query-empty(abort)+delete-char'

If the query is empty, skim will execute abort action, otherwise execute delete-char action. It is equal to `delete-char/eof`.

Jinzhou Zhang (lotabout@gmail.com)

Project homepage:

https://github.com/lotabout/skim

Extra Vim plugin:

https://github.com/lotabout/skim.vim

MIT

Oct 2018 sk 0.17.5