vlsh — The Hackable Unix Shell

Features

Everything you need, nothing you don't

vlsh ships with the fundamentals done right, then gets out of your way.

⚡

Fast & Compiled

Built with V, vlsh compiles to a lean native binary. Cold start is near-instant — no interpreter overhead on every keystroke.

Pipes, Redirection & Chains

Full pipeline support with | pipes, < / > / >> redirection, and && / || / ; command chaining. Glob expansion, tilde expansion, and $VAR substitution all work as expected.

💬

Smart History

Persistent command history across sessions (up to 5 000 entries). Press Ctrl+R for incremental search through every command you've run.

⇥

Tab Completion

File and directory completion out of the box, including paths after a trailing / in subdirectories. Plugins can register custom completions for commands, flags, and any domain-specific vocabulary.

→

Inline Autosuggestions

Fish-style ghost text appears as you type, sourced from command history. Press → or End to accept the suggestion. Includes path validation for cd candidates and a filesystem fallback.

🔌

Plugin System

Install community plugins from the remote repository with plugins install <name> and keep them up to date with plugins update. Plugins can add commands, decorate the prompt, run hooks, and provide completions.

⎗

Built-in Multiplexer

Split panes horizontally or vertically with Ctrl+V prefix bindings. Mouse support and 1 000-line scrollback per pane — no tmux dependency needed.

📜

Native .vsh Scripts

Run .vsh V scripts directly without manually compiling them first. Great for automation that needs performance without the ceremony of a full build.

🎨

Theming & Aliases

Configure prompt colors via RGB values in ~/.vlshrc. Manage aliases at runtime or persist them in your config — all without restarting the shell.

POSIX

POSIX compatibility

vlsh is not a POSIX-conformant shell, but it supports the commonly-used subset of POSIX features so that everyday scripts and muscle memory just work.

Supported operators

Operator	Behaviour
`&&`	Run next command only on success
`\|\|`	Run next command only on failure
`;`	Run next command unconditionally
`<`	Redirect stdin from a file
`>`	Redirect stdout, overwriting the file
`>>`	Redirect stdout, appending to the file

Supported builtins

Builtin	Description
`export` / `unset`	Set or remove environment variables
`source` / `.`	Execute a script in the current shell context
`cd`	Change directory; supports `~`, `$HOME`, and `cd -`
`exit`	Exit the shell with an optional status code
`$?`	Expands to the exit status of the last command

Installation

Get up and running

Pre-built packages for Linux, or build from source in seconds.

shell

# Download the latest .deb package from the releases page
wget https://github.com/vlshcc/vlsh/releases/latest/download/vlsh_linux_amd64.deb

# Install
sudo dpkg -i vlsh_linux_amd64.deb

# Add to valid login shells and set as default (optional)
echo "/usr/local/bin/vlsh" | sudo tee -a /etc/shells
chsh -s /usr/local/bin/vlsh

shell

# Download the standalone binary (64-bit Linux)
wget https://github.com/vlshcc/vlsh/releases/latest/download/vlsh_linux_amd64
chmod +x vlsh_linux_amd64
sudo mv vlsh_linux_amd64 /usr/local/bin/vlsh

# Add to valid login shells and set as default (optional)
echo "/usr/local/bin/vlsh" | sudo tee -a /etc/shells
chsh -s /usr/local/bin/vlsh

shell

# Requires V — https://vlang.io
git clone https://github.com/vlshcc/vlsh
cd vlsh
v .
sudo mv vlsh /usr/local/bin/vlsh

# Add to valid login shells and set as default (optional)
echo "/usr/local/bin/vlsh" | sudo tee -a /etc/shells
chsh -s /usr/local/bin/vlsh

Plugins

Extend with pure V

The plugin system is the heart of vlsh's hackability. Install community plugins from the remote repository with a single command — plugins are versioned and stored under ~/.vlsh/plugins/<name>/<version>/. Plugins can:

1 Register new built-in commands available everywhere in the shell
2 Decorate the prompt — e.g. show the current git branch and commit
3 Provide tab-completions for any command or flag
4 Run pre/post hooks before and after every command
5 Be installed from the community repo with plugins install

~/.vlsh/plugins/myplugin/v1.0.0/myplugin.v

// Plugins implement main() and respond to argument tokens
module main

import os

fn main() {
    arg := if os.args.len > 1 { os.args[1] } else { '' }
    match arg {
        'capabilities' { println('prompt') }
        'prompt' {
            branch := os.execute('git branch --show-current')
            if branch.exit_code == 0 {
                print(' (' + branch.output.trim_space() + ')')
            }
        }
        else {}
    }
}

Community plugins

git prompt

Shows the current branch and short commit hash in your prompt with configurable RGB colours.

ssh_hosts completion

Tab-completes SSH hostnames from ~/.ssh/config and known_hosts.

v_man command

Browse V standard library docs in the terminal, fetched live from modules.vlang.io.

git_mood command

Tracks your emotional state across git commits to see how mood correlates with code quality.

hello_plugin template

A minimal, commented template — the perfect starting point for writing your first plugin.

Browse the full catalogue and contribute at github.com/vlshcc/plugins

Plugin management

Command	Description
`plugins list`	Show all locally installed plugins with their installed version
`plugins remote`	List plugins in the remote repository with version info and available updates
`plugins search <query>`	Search available plugins by name or description
`plugins install <name>`	Download and install the latest semver version of a plugin
`plugins update [name]`	Update one plugin or all installed plugins to their latest version
`plugins reload`	Recompile and reload all plugins (run after install or update)
`plugins enable / disable <name>`	Activate or deactivate a plugin without deleting it
`plugins enable / disable all`	Activate or deactivate all plugins at once
`plugins delete <name>`	Remove an installed plugin and its entire directory