¬ just serendipity 🍀 (not just serendipity)

Previously:

Sometimes it’s useful to have certain code snippets be easily accessible from the clipboard manager.

[…]

This workflow is decent for temporary entries. For semi-permanent ones, I should look into Espanso at some point. For now, Raycast Snippets fills in this role.

Today is the day!

Espanso:

Supercharge your typing| experience.

Tired of typing the same sentences over and over? Discover the incredible power of a full-blown text expander.

So?

How it works

Espanso detects when you type a keyword

Today is :date

(becomes) Today is 05/16/2025

and replaces it while you’re typing.

It’s just like Text Expander from Raycast snippets.

It’s available on all major OSes (Windows, Linux, macOS). I am testing it on macOS. Installation:

% brew install espanso

After installing it and opening it, give it all sorts of System Accessibility permissions so that it can perform its magic.

This is just a “hello world” post, therefore I am not going to list every single capability it has. Let’s just keep it simple and get our feet wet.

I have to type helm ls -A --max 9999 | grep -i {release} all the time, and I’m fed up with it.

I want to create a :helm:ls expansion that will trigger that command expansion.

Run espanso edit. It opens a stock base.yml file:

# espanso match file

# For a complete introduction, visit the official docs at: https://espanso.org/docs/

# You can use this file to define the base matches (aka snippets)
# that will be available in every application when using espanso.

# Matches are substitution rules: when you type the "trigger" string
# it gets replaced by the "replace" string.
matches:
  # Simple text replacement
  - trigger: ":espanso"
    replace: "Hi there!"

  # NOTE: espanso uses YAML to define matches, so pay attention to the indentation!

  # But matches can also be dynamic:

  # Print the current date
  - trigger: ":date"
    replace: "{{mydate}}"
    vars:
      - name: mydate
        type: date
        params:
          format: "%m/%d/%Y"

  # Print the output of a shell command
  - trigger: ":shell"
    replace: "{{output}}"
    vars:
      - name: output
        type: shell
        params:
          cmd: "echo 'Hello from your shell'"
  # And much more! For more information, visit the docs: https://espanso.org/docs/

The file is self-contained and well-documented enough that I do not need to look up any docs nor use AI to add the desired entry:

# [...]
matches:
  # [...]
  - trigger: ":helm:ls"
    replace: "helm ls --max 9999 -A | grep -i"

Once the file is saved, it’s magic ✨, and it takes effect immediately.

Example usage¹:

:helm:ls redis

…becomes:

helm ls --max 9999 -A | grep -i redis

For reference, this is the full path to the file:

% espanso edit
Editing file: /Users/thiago.perrotta/Library/Application Support/espanso/match/base.yml

I am particularly excited it’s YAML and it’s accessible in a stable location: it should be quite easy to integrate it with my dotfiles later on.

Its out-of-the-box usability (for developers who prefer text files) and perceived speed are better than Raycast snippets.

There are so many possibilities to explore: command espansions expansions, LLM prompts, email greetings, canned responses, and so on.

For Raycast snippets I was using @@ as a prefix. Espanso seems to recommend :. Let’s see which one I will stick to.

Also, I’d like to thank Farzad for the recommendation via email. It wasn’t the first time I had heard about Espanso, but it has reinforced my desire to try it out.