# Antigen <sup>&beta;</sup>

  
  Antigen is a small set of functions that help you easily manage your shell (zsh)
  plugins, called bundles. The concept is pretty much the same as bundles in a
  typical vim+pathogen setup. Antigen is to zsh, what [Vundle][] is to vim.

  Please note that this is a very new project and can be considered beta at best.

  That said, I am using antigen full time now on my work machine.
  
  Note: Please read the commit comments of the changesets when you pull a new
  version of antigen.

  ## Show off

  
  > Enough talk. Let's fight!
  >   -- Po, Kung-fu Panda.
  
  You're going to experience antigen right in your open shell. No `.zshrc`
  tweaking and reading the rest of this documentation. Kinda like an ice-cream
  sample, if you will.
  
  Get and load antigen.
  
      curl https://raw.github.com/zsh-users/antigen/master/antigen.zsh > antigen.zsh
      source antigen.zsh
  
  There. You now have all the antigen goodies. Let's try install some plugins. How

  about some color to start with. Get the [syntax highlighting plugin][] by
  running

  
      antigen-bundle zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting

  Now let it do its thing and once you're back at your prompt, try and type a
  command. See that? Colors!

  
  So, you do git? ruby? git and ruby? There are lots of awesome plugins over at
  oh-my-zsh. Treat yourself to some.
  
      antigen-bundle robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh plugins/ruby

      # Or for the lazy,
      antigen-bundle git

  
  There are lots of plugins out there in the wild and people are writing zsh
  utilities as small scripts all the time. Antigen is compatible with all of them.
  The plugins and scripts don't need any special handling to be compatible with
  antigen.

  Another example, [kennethreitz's autoenv][autoenv]. Just a bundle command away.

  
      antigen-bundle kennethreitz/autoenv
  
  And boom! you have all the autoenv goodness. Just remember how you used to do
  these before antigen, clone it, modify your bashrc to source it, load a new
  terminal, all just to test it out. Duh!

  A subtle aspect of this is that you can tell antigen to grab just about anything

  from anyone's `dotfiles` repo, as long as it is in a directory under any repo on
  github.
  
  And themes? How would you like a fancy new prompt for yourself?
  
      antigen-theme funky
  
  No? Not your taste? There are many themes available to you, check out the

  oh-my-zsh's [page on themes][]. (You can currently only install themes from

  robbyrussell's, i.e., the canonical oh-my-zsh repo).
  
  Note: Many of those plugins and especially themes, assume you have the core
  library of oh-my-zsh loaded. So, if you want to experiment further, issue a
  
      antigen-lib
  
  and continue until you're tired. At which point you can come back to this page
  ;)

  ## Usage

  So, now that you're here, I suppose you are convinced and want antigen running

  your shell all the time. Sweet. Let's do it.

  First, clone this repo, probably as a submodule if you have your dotfiles in a
  git repo,

      git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/antigen.git

  The usage should be very familiar to you if you use Vundle. A typical `.zshrc`
  might look like this

      source /path-to-antigen-clone/antigen.zsh

  
      # Load the oh-my-zsh's library.

      antigen-lib

  
      # Bundles from the default repo (robbyrussell's oh-my-zsh).

      antigen-bundle git
      antigen-bundle heroku
      antigen-bundle pip
      antigen-bundle lein
      antigen-bundle command-not-found

  
      # Syntax highlighting bundle.

      antigen-bundle zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting

  
      # Load the theme.

      antigen-theme robbyrussell

      # Tell antigen that you're done.

      antigen-apply

  Open your zsh with this zshrc and you should see all the bundles you defined
  here, getting installed. Once its done, you are ready to roll. The complete

  syntax for the `antigen-bundle` command is discussed further down on this page.

  ## Motivation

  
  If you use zsh and [oh-my-zsh][], you know that having many different plugins

  that are developed by many different authors in a single (sub)repo is not very

  easy to maintain. There are some really fantastic plugins and utilities in
  oh-my-zsh, but having them all in a single repo doesn't really scale well. And I

  admire robbyrussell's efforts for reviewing and merging the gigantic number of

  pull requests the project gets. We need a better way of plugin management.

  
  This was discussed on [a][1] [few][2] [issues][3], but it doesn't look like
  there was any progress made. So, I'm trying to start this off with antigen,
  hoping to better this situation. Please note that I'm by no means a zsh or any
  shell script expert (far from it).
  
  [1]: https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/issues/465
  [2]: https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/issues/377
  [3]: https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/issues/1014
  
  Inspired by vundle, antigen can pull oh-my-zsh style plugins from various github
  repositories. You are not limited to use plugins from the oh-my-zsh repository
  only and you don't need to maintain your own fork and pull from upstream every

  now and then. I actually encourage you to grab plugins and scripts from various
  sources, straight from the authors, before they even submit it to oh-my-zsh as a
  pull request.

  
  Antigen also lets you switch the prompt theme with one command, just like that
  
      bundle-theme candy

  and your prompt is changed, just for this session of course (unless you put this
  line in your `.zshrc`).

  ## Commands

  The following are the commands provided by antigen. Note that the `-` in the

  following commands can be replaced with a space. You can write `antigen-bundle
  ...` as `antigen bundle ...` and get away with it. For more details see the help
  on `antigen` command further down in this section.

  ### antigen-bundle

  This command tells antigen to install (if not already installed) and load the
  given plugin. The simplest usage follows the following syntax.

      antigen-bundle <plugin-name>

  This will install and load the `plugins/<name>` directory from [robbyrussell's

  oh-my-zsh][oh-my-zsh] (can be changed by setting `ANTIGEN_DEFAULT_REPO_URL`).

  However, the above is just syntax sugar for the extended syntax of the
  `antigen-bundle` command.

      antigen-bundle [<url> [<loc>]]

  
  where `<url>` is the repository url and it defaults to [robbyrussell's

  oh-my-zsh][oh-my-zsh] repo (can be changed by setting `ANTIGEN_DEFAULT_REPO_URL`
  discussed further down). `<loc>` is the path under this repository which has the
  zsh plugin. This is typically the directory that contains a `*.plugin.zsh` file,
  but it could contain a completion file or just many `*.zsh` files to be sourced.
  `<loc>` defaults to `/`, which indicates the repository itself is a plugin.

  
  An example invocation would be

      # The following is the same as `antigen-bundle ant`. But for demonstration
      # purposes, we use the extended syntax here.
      antigen-bundle https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh.git plugins/ant

  This would install the ant plugin from robbyrussell's oh-my-zsh repo. Of course,
  github url's can be shortened.

      antigen-bundle robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh plugins/ant

  And since this repo is the default, even that isn't necessary. But we can't
  specify the `loc` without giving the first argument.

  For this and a few other reasons, `antigen-bundle` also supports a simple
  keyword argument syntax, using which we can rewrite the above as

      antigen-bundle --loc=plugins/ant

  Which picks up the default for the `url` argument, and uses the `loc` given to
  it.

  *Note* that you can mix and match positional and keyword arguments. But you
  can't have positional arguments after keyword arguments.

      antigen-bundle robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh --loc=plugins/ant

  
  And keyword arguments don't care about the order in which the arguments are
  specified. The following is perfectly valid.

      antigen-bundle --loc=plugins/ant --url=robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh

  You can also specify a local directory on your file system as a bundle. In this
  case, make sure the path you give is the absolute path (i.e., starts with a
  `/`). Relative paths are not supported. If the repo you gave is a local
  directory path, then it is not necessary that this path is a git repo. Please

  refer to the notes on `--no-local-clone` below.

  This command can also be used from your shell environment. This allows you to
  install plugins on the fly and try them out. Of course if you want a bundle to
  be available every time you open a shell, put it in your `.zshrc`.

  Other keyword-only arguments accepted:

  `--branch={git-branch-name}` — Specify the branch of the git repo to be
  used for this bundle (without the braces of course). The default is whatever
  branch the clone comes with, which is usually `master`. For example,
  
      antigen-bundle github-user/repo --branch=develop
  
  This will get the plugin as in the branch `develop`.
  
  Note that if you specify two plugins to be loaded from the same git repo, but
  different branches, then two separate clones of this repo will be maintained.
  This is a small implementation detail and shouldn't influence you in any way.
  
  `--no-local-clone` — This command can be useful if you are developing a
  plugin and already have a clone on your local file system. If this argument is
  not given, even if the given repo url is a local path, a clone is made in the
  `$ADOTDIR/repos`, and the plugin is loaded from that clone. But, if you give
  this argument, the plugin is sourced straight from the repo location, without
  creating a clone. For example,
  
      antigen-bundle /absolute/path/to/the/plugin --no-local-clone

  Note that if the repo url is *not* an absolute local path or a branch has been
  specified with the `--branch` option, this argument has no effect. That is,
  for this option to have any affect, the repo url must be an absolute local path
  and no `--branch` should be specified.

  Also, if the local path given as the url is not a git repo, then this
  argument is forced as it doesn't makes sense to *clone* something that's not a
  git repo. This property can be used to load any utility scripts you have in your
  dotfiles repo. For example,
  
      antigen-bundle $HOME/dotfiles/oh-my-zsh/custom

  In addition to the above discussed arguments, `antigen-bundle` also takes a
  `btype` keyword-only argument, that is used internally. You shouldn't be
  concerned with this argument, its only used internally and will probably go away
  in the future.  It indicates whether the bundle is a theme or a simple plugin.

  ### antigen-bundles

  
  If you have a fair number of bundles, using the `antigen-bundle` command can
  look cumbersome. You can use the `antigen-bundles` command to *bulk* define
  bundles instead of individual calls to `antigen-bundle`.
  
  Usage is pretty straightforward. Just pipe the bundle specifications, just as
  you would give to the `antigen-bundle` command, one per line, into the
  `antigen-bundles` command. The easiest way to do this, is using the heredoc
  syntax.

      antigen-bundles <<EOBUNDLES

      # Guess what to install when running an unknown command.
      command-not-found
  
      # The heroku tool helper plugin.
      heroku

      EOBUNDLES

  
  This is equivalent to
  
      antigen-bundle command-not-found
      antigen-bundle heroku
  
  Of course, as you can see, from the lines piped to `antigen-bundles`, empty
  lines and those starting with a `#` are ignored. The rest are passed to
  `antigen-bundle` without any quoting rules applied. They are actually `eval`-ed
  with the `antigen-bundle` command. See the source if you want to really
  understand how it works. Its a very small function.

  ### antigen-update

  This is something you might not want to put in your `.zshrc`. Instead, run it
  occasionally to update all your plugins. It doesn't take any arguments.

      antigen-update

  Please note that the updates that are downloaded are not immediately available.
  You have to open a new shell to be able to see the changes. This is a limitation
  by design since reloading all the plugins *might* have some nasty side effects
  that may not be immediately apparent. Let's just say it can make your shell act
  real quirky.

  **Please note**: This command is not for updating *antigen* itself. Its for
  updating the bundles you are using with antigen.

  ### antigen-revert <sup>&alpha;</sup>
  
  Reverts the state of all your plugins to how they were before the last
  `antigen-update`. This command is currently experimental, so don't rely too much
  on it. There is a test for it, and it passes, so it should work fine though.
  
  Takes no options.
  
  Insider detail: The information for reverting is stored in
  `$ADOTDIR/revert-info` file.  If its not present, reverting is not possible.

  ### antigen-list

  Use this command to list out the currently *loaded* plugins. Keep in mind that
  this includes any bundles installed on-the-fly.

  Takes no arguments. Gives out four entries per line of output, denoting the
  following fields of each bundle.
  
      <repo-url> <loc> <btype> <has-local-clone?>
  
  The `btype` field is an internal detail, that specifies if the bundle is a
  `plugin` or a `theme`.
  
  The final field is `true` or `false` reflecting whether there is a local clone
  for this bundle.

  ### antigen-cleanup

  Used to clean up the clones of repos which are not used by any plugins currently
  loaded. It takes no arguments. When run, it lists out the repo-clones that are
  available but are not used by any plugin *currently loaded*.

  This command, by default asks for confirmation before deleting the unused
  clones. If the `--force` argument is given, then this confirmation is not asked.
  It straight away deletes all the unused clones. This option makes this command
  usable in a non-interactive fashion.

  ### antigen-lib

  This is a shortcut to

      antigen-bundle --loc=lib

  So, it basically installs the oh-my-zsh's library as a bundle.
  
  Please note that this assumes that the `ANTIGEN_DEFAULT_REPO_URL` is set to the
  oh-my-zsh repo or a fork of that repo. If you want to specify the `url` too,
  then you can't use the `antigen-lib` short cut. You have to do that directly
  with the `antigen-bundle` command.

  
  This is present only for legacy reasons and *might* (or might not) be removed in
  the future.
  
  Use

      antigen-lib

  in  your `.zshrc`, before any `antigen-bundle` declarations. It takes no
  arguments.

  ### antigen-theme

  
  Used for switching the prompt theme. Invoke it with the name of the theme you
  want to use.

      antigen-theme fox

  
  Currently, themes are pulled from robbyrussell's oh-my-zsh repo, but it will
  support getting themes from other repos as well in the future.

  You can use this command to change your theme on the fly in your shell. Go on,
  try out a few themes in your shell before you set it in your `.zshrc`.

  **Note**: Some themes use functions that are loaded by `antigen-lib`. So, to
  avoid any trouble, run `antigen-lib` if you haven't already before experimenting
  with themes. If you have `antigen-lib` in your `.zshrc`, you're covered.

  ### antigen-apply

  
  You have to add this command after defining all bundles you need, in your zshrc.
  The completions defined by your bundles will be loaded at this step.
  
  It is possible to load completions as and when a bundle is specified with the
  bundle command, in which case this command would not be necessary. But loading

  the completions is a time-consuming process, so if the completions were loaded
  at every call to `antigen-bundle`, your shell will start noticeably slow when
  you have a good number of bundle specifications.

  However, if you can suggest a way so that this would not be necessary, I am very
  interested in discussing it. Please open up an issue with your details. Thanks.

  ### antigen-help
  
  This exists so that there can be some help right in the command line. Currently
  it doesn't provide much help other than redirecting you to the project page for
  documentation. It is intended to provide more meaning and sub-command specific
  help in the future.
  
  I could use some help here as I'm not that good at writing documentation that
  looks good as output on the command line.
  
  ### antigen

  This is a parent command that mainly exists for convenience. This exists so the
  following two can be the same.

  
      antigen-list
      antigen list
  
  and
  
      antigen-help
      antigen help
  
  Because of this, we can create aliases like
  
      alias a=antigen
      alias an=antigen
  
  and run the antigen commands without making them look annoyingly long.
  
      a bundle ruby
      a theme candy
      a list
  
  And even...
  
      an update

  ## Configuration

  
  The following environment variables can be set to customize the behavior of

  antigen. Make sure you set them *before* source-ing `antigen.zsh`.

  
  `ANTIGEN_DEFAULT_REPO_URL` — This is the default repository url that is
  used for `bundle` commands. The default value is robbyrussell's oh-my-zsh repo,
  but you can set this to the fork url of your own fork.

  `ADOTDIR` — This directory is used to store all the repo clones, your
  bundles, themes, caches and everything else antigen requires to run smoothly.
  Defaults to `$HOME/.antigen`.

  **Note**: `ANTIGEN_REPO_CACHE` & `ANTIGEN_BUNDLE_DIR` — These variables
  were used previously but are now removed. Please use `ADOTDIR` instead, as
  mentioned above.

  ## Running the tests

  All the tests are in the `tests` folder and are run using the [cram][] test

  system. The latest version on that website, as of today is v0.5, which does not
  have the `--shell` argument which is required to run our tests. So, to get the
  correct version of cram, run

      pip install -r requirements.txt

  With that, once you have cram installed, you can run the tests as

      make

  
  If you are making a feature addition, I'd really appreciate if you can add a
  test for your feature. Even if you can add a test for an existing feature, that
  would be great as the tests are currently seriously lagging behind the full
  functionality of antigen.

  ## Notes on writing plugins

  Most shell utilities/plugins are made up of just one file. For a plugin called
  `awesomeness`, create a `awesomeness.plugin.zsh` and code away.
  
  That said, even if you write a single file as a `.sh` file with the goodness you
  want to create, antigen will work just fine with it. The `*.plugin.zsh` way is
  recommended by antigen, because it is widely used because of the [oh-my-zsh][]
  project.

  
  If you want to know how antigen loads the plugins, do continue.
  
  Firstly, antigen looks for a `*.plugin.zsh` file in the plugin directory. If
  present, it will source *only* this script. Nothing else is sourced.
  
  Otherwise, it looks for `*.zsh` files and if there are any, *all* of them are
  sourced. The order in which they are sourced is not currently defined. Please
  don't rely on this order. Nothing else is sourced after all the `*.zsh` scripts.
  
  If no `*.zsh` files are present, it finally looks for any `*.sh` files and
  sources *all* of them. Again, the order in which they are sourced in not
  currently defined.
  
  No matter which (or none) of the above happen to be sourced, this plugin
  directory is added to the zsh's function path (`$fpath`) so that any completions

  in it are loaded.
  
  One exception to this rule is that if this plugin is a theme. In which case the
  theme script is just sourced and nothing else is done. Not even adding to
  `$fpath`.

  ## Meta

  ### Helping out
  
  Antigen is licensed with the [MIT License][license]. To contribute, just fork,

  make changes and send a pull request. If its a rather long/complicated change,
  please consider opening an [issue][] first so we can discuss it out.

  ### Feedback please

  Any comments/suggestions/feedback welcome. Please say hello to me
  ([@sharat87][twitter]) on twitter. Or open an issue to discuss something
  (anything!) about the project ;).

  [Vundle]: https://github.com/gmarik/vundle

  [page on themes]: https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/wiki/Themes
  [syntax highlighting plugin]: https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting

  [autoenv]: https://github.com/kennethreitz/autoenv

  [oh-my-zsh]: https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh

  [cram]: https://bitheap.org/cram/

  [issue]: https://github.com/zsh-users/antigen/issues

  [license]: http://mit.sharats.me

  [twitter]: http://twitter.com/sharat87