Managing snippets with Espanso

Espanso is a cross-platform, open-source tool for text expansion, macros, and other replacements. It's driven entirely by YAML config files, which can be shared via cloud or version control.

Setup

Espanso is very configurable; the config can be as simple as a single yaml file or as complicated as multiple root yaml files that conditionally include other files along with scripts. Espanso's docs are great, but you can view my espanso config and matches in my dotfiles repo.

My matches

The following are matches I use to speed up certain workflow tasks.

Test data generation

One of the things I use Espanso for the most is generating test data. To this end I use two tools: faker and lorem-ipsum-cli.

faker

I use the python version of faker, but there are also other platforms available including NodeJS, Perl, Ruby, and Java. Faker includes a substantial dataset to generate fake names, organization names, phone numbers, file names, anything you might need when doing testing of your current project with realistic data.

I use a combination of a choice match and a shell match to input fake data:

matches:
  - trigger: ":faker"
    replace: ""
    vars:
      # Supported options, each id should match a faker module
      - name: module
        type: choice
        params:
          values:
            - label: "First Name"
              id: "first_name"
            - label: "Company"
              id: "company"
            - label: "Phone Number"
              id: "phone_number"
            - label: "File Name"
              id: "file_name"
            - label: "Street Address"
              id: "address"
            - label: "SSN"
              id: "ssn"
            - label: "Email"
              id: "email"
      - name: output
        type: shell
        params:
          cmd: 'pyenv exec python "$CONFIG/scripts/fake.py"'

from faker import Faker
from os import environ
fake = Faker()
# the module is set as an environment variable
module = environ["ESPANSO_MODULE"]
print(getattr(fake, module)())

lorem

The lorem ipsum match is a little simpler. There are certainly other tools, but I use the lorem-ipsum-cli node package. I have two matches - one for a single sentence and one for a single paragraph.

matches:
  - trigger: ":lorem"
    label: "Paragraph"
    replace: ""
    vars:
      - name: output
        type: shell
        params:
          cmd: "lorem -p"
  - trigger: ":lorem"
    label: "Sentence"
    replace: ""
    vars:
      - name: output
        type: shell
        params:
          cmd: "lorem"

Dev

VS Code is my primary editor and supports snippets out the box, but I find a universal, application agnostic solution works best. So, I keep various development-related snippets in Espanso as well.

Eslint comments

When working with legacy code (or on the occasion you actually have to write one of these anti-patterns), it can be useful to disable linting rules for a single line of code. For me, it's usually null assertions or line length issues. I have these eslint comment replacements for use in VS Code.

matches:
  - trigger: ":nonnull"
    replace: "// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-non-null-assertion -- This will not be null."
  - trigger: ":protect"
    replace: "// @ts-expect-error - Accessing a protected member"
  - trigger: ":private"
    replace: "// @ts-expect-error - Accessing a private member"
  - trigger: ":readonly"
    replace: "// @ts-expect-error - Writing a readonly property"
  - trigger: ":maxlen"
    replace: "// eslint-disable-next-line max-len"

PR and commit messages

- trigger: ":commit"
  replace: |
    feat():

    Refs #
  vars:
    - name: "clipboard"
      type: "clipboard"
- trigger: ":prdesc"
  replace: "# Summary:

    Brief summary of what this change does. Usually can be an elaboration on your commit messages.

    Ticket reference: [AB-](https://my-jira-domain.atlassian.net/browse/AB-)

    ## Changed:

    ~~ Stuff changed, but not new stuff

    ## Added:

    ~~ New stuff

    ## Removed:

    ~~ Deleted stuff

    ## Fixed:

    ~~ Bugs fixed, usually to call out specific bugs if necessary

    # Validation Steps:

    ~~ Used for steps to validate the change"

Misc

Commonly misspelled words

It's simple, but if I have to type the same word over and over again and misspell it half the time - Espanso to the rescue!

matches:
  - trigger: ":elg"
    replace: "eligibility"
  - trigger: ":Elg"
    replace: "Eligibility"