Fish shell 4.7 refines interactivity, shell history, UI consistency, completions, and more
Fish 4.7 is now available, focusing on improved interactivity and usability for Unix-like shell users. In this release, repaint events no longer reset the completion pager and other transient user interface states, leading to a smoother workflow. Building on previous customization features, the default theme is no longer applied in non-interactive shells, which benefits scripting and automation scenarios.
The shell prompt now strips control characters for safer output, while directory completions are sorted more predictably. Color handling has been improved, with fish_color_valid_path respecting background and underline settings for clearer visual cues. Users editing functions with funced will no longer lose work after repeated parse errors unless actual changes are made to the file.
Alongside these changes, the alt-o binding has been extended to open read-only files at the command token, and private in-memory command history is isolated from the built-in read, enhancing both usability and privacy. History files are now protected from corruption if fish receives SIGTERM or SIGHUP. Completion generation is more robust as fish_update_completions can now handle groff device control escapes, ensuring compatibility with modern man pages generated by tools like help2man 1.50 and later.
Additional improvements include a more intuitive web-based config for removing history, safer management of internal file descriptors, fallback handling for vendor completions, and clearer error message wording.
