How to Disable Autosuggestions in fish Shell

If you use the command line then you might be familiar with the Command Prompt or PowerShell on Windows. On Mac, zsh is common. On Linux, it's Bash.

fish shell is an alternative shell available on Windows, macOS, Linux, and BSD.

Typically, shells use profiles (e.g., .bashrc) to manage persistent configuration changes. For example, if I want to permanently set an environment variable then I might do so in my shell configuration file. Then my changes would be loaded each time I start my shell (or terminal application).

fish shell has a different approach to persistent configuration. While internally it uses files for persistent configuration and it offers configuration files as a user option, by convention fish uses autoloading functions and universal variables to manage state between sessions.

While using a shell, I find command suggestions distracting. A command suggestion occurs when you type a few characters and the shell shows an entire command including options and parameters. PowerShell calls this Predictive IntelliSense. And fish calls it an autosuggestion (automatic suggestion).

Note the related but distinct feature of tab completion where you type a few characters and then press the Tab key to automatically complete a single word.

As a personal preference, I turn off IntelliSense.

Below, I show how to turn off autosuggestions in fish.