TabComplete — AI Inline Suggestions
AI-powered inline code completions for VS Code, driven by your own Anthropic API key. Suggestions appear as ghost text at your cursor and are accepted with Tab.
Features
- Ghost text completions — suggestions render inline as dimmed text, exactly like GitHub Copilot
- Tab to accept — press Tab to insert the full completion
- Manual trigger — press
Ctrl+Alt+Space (or Cmd+Alt+Space on Mac) to request a suggestion on demand
- Auto-trigger — suggestions fire automatically as you type, with a configurable debounce delay
- Toggle auto-trigger — click the status bar item or run the toggle command to switch auto-trigger on/off without touching settings
- Works in every language — registered for all file types; optionally restrict to specific languages
- Fill-in-the-middle context — sends both the code before and after your cursor so completions fit naturally
- Completion cache — identical context reuses the previous result without an extra API call
- Secure API key storage — key is stored in the OS keychain (Windows Credential Manager / macOS Keychain / Linux libsecret), never in plain-text settings
- Fully configurable — token budgets, debounce, temperature, stop sequences, timeouts, and more
Getting Started
- Install the extension from the VS Code Marketplace
- Open the Command Palette (
Ctrl+Shift+P) and run TabComplete: Set API Key
- Paste your Anthropic API key (
sk-ant-...)
- Start coding — suggestions will appear automatically, or press
Ctrl+Alt+Space to trigger one manually
Commands
| Command |
Default Keybinding |
Description |
| TabComplete: Set API Key |
— |
Store your Anthropic API key securely in the OS keychain |
| TabComplete: Trigger Inline Suggestion |
Alt+\ |
Manually request a suggestion at the cursor |
| TabComplete: Toggle Auto-Trigger |
Status bar click |
Enable or disable automatic suggestions while typing |
| TabComplete: Clear Completion Cache |
— |
Flush the in-memory completion cache |
You can rebind the trigger keybinding at any time via File → Preferences → Keyboard Shortcuts.
Status Bar
A TabComplete item appears in the bottom-right status bar:
| Icon |
Meaning |
✦ TabComplete |
Auto-trigger is on |
⊘ TabComplete |
Auto-trigger is off |
⟳ TabComplete |
A completion is being fetched |
Click it to toggle auto-trigger on/off.
Configuration
All settings are under the tabComplete.* namespace. Open Settings (Ctrl+,) and search for TabComplete.
| Setting |
Type |
Default |
Description |
tabComplete.model |
string |
claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 |
Claude model to use. Haiku is fastest and cheapest; Sonnet and Opus offer higher quality at greater cost. |
tabComplete.autoTrigger |
boolean |
true |
Automatically trigger suggestions while typing. Disable to use manual-only mode. |
tabComplete.debounceDelay |
number (ms) |
350 |
How long to wait after the last keystroke before firing a suggestion. Increase to reduce API calls; decrease for faster response. |
tabComplete.maxPromptTokens |
number |
512 |
Total token budget for the context sent to the model (prefix + suffix combined). Higher values give the model more code to reason about but increase latency and cost. |
tabComplete.prefixPercentage |
number (0–1) |
0.85 |
Fraction of maxPromptTokens allocated to the code before the cursor. The remaining budget goes to the suffix. |
tabComplete.maxSuffixPercentage |
number (0–0.5) |
0.2 |
Maximum fraction of maxPromptTokens allocated to the code after the cursor. |
tabComplete.maxCompletionTokens |
number |
256 |
Maximum number of tokens the model can generate per completion. Lower values keep suggestions short and fast. |
tabComplete.temperature |
number (0–1) |
0 |
Sampling temperature. 0 = fully deterministic. Higher values produce more varied suggestions. |
tabComplete.useCache |
boolean |
true |
Cache completions so that identical context reuses the previous result without an extra API call. Cleared on restart or via the Clear Cache command. |
tabComplete.multilineCompletion |
boolean |
true |
Allow completions that span multiple lines. When false, the model stops at the first newline, producing single-line suggestions only. |
tabComplete.minTriggerLength |
number |
0 |
Minimum number of characters on the current line before auto-trigger fires. 0 triggers on empty lines too. Increase to suppress suggestions until you've started typing. |
tabComplete.modelTimeout |
number (ms) |
10000 |
Abort a completion request after this many milliseconds if no response has arrived. |
tabComplete.stopSequences |
string[] |
["\n\n"] |
Strings that cause the model to stop generating. Add language-specific sequences (e.g. "\nfunction ") to prevent completions from running into the next declaration. |
tabComplete.enabledLanguages |
string[] |
[] |
Language IDs to enable completions for. An empty array enables completions in all file types. Example: ["typescript", "python", "go"]. |
tabComplete.showLoadingIndicator |
boolean |
true |
Show a loading spinner in the status bar while a completion is being fetched. |
Models
| Model |
Speed |
Cost |
Best for |
claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 |
⚡ Fastest |
$ Lowest |
Default — ideal for real-time inline suggestions |
claude-sonnet-4-6 |
◑ Balanced |
$$ Medium |
Better completions when latency is acceptable |
claude-opus-4-7 |
◔ Slowest |
$$$ Highest |
Highest quality for complex completions |
Tips
Reduce API usage — increase debounceDelay to 500+, enable useCache, or set autoTrigger to false and use the manual keybinding.
Faster suggestions — lower maxPromptTokens to 256 and maxCompletionTokens to 128.
Single-line only — set multilineCompletion to false for quick one-liner suggestions.
Language-specific stop sequences — add sequences like "\nclass " or "\ndef " to stopSequences to prevent completions from spilling into the next function or class.
Restrict to certain languages — set enabledLanguages to e.g. ["typescript", "python"] to avoid triggering in markdown or JSON files.
Privacy & Security
- Your API key is stored in the OS keychain via VS Code's
SecretStorage API — it is never written to settings.json or any plain-text file.
- Code context is sent to Anthropic's API for completion. Review Anthropic's privacy policy for details on data handling.
- No telemetry is collected by this extension.
Requirements
License
MIT
