Introduction

       The  Elvish  command,  elvish, contains the Elvish shell and is the main way for using the
       Elvish programming language.  This documentation describes its behavior that is  not  part
       of the language or any of the standard modules.

Using Elvish interactively

       Invoking  Elvish with no argument runs it in interactive mode (unless there are flags that
       suppress this behavior).

       In this mode, Elvish runs a REPL (read-eval-print loop) that evaluates input continuously.
       The  “read”  part  of the REPL is a rich interactive editor, and its API is exposed by the
       edit: module.  Each unit of code read is executed as a code chunk.

   RC file
       Before the REPL starts, Elvish will execute the  RC  file.   Its  path  is  determined  as
       follows:

       • If  the  legacy  ~/.elvish/rc.elv  exists,  it is used (this will be ignored in a future
         version).

       • Otherwise:

         • On UNIX (including  macOS),  $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/elvish/rc.elv  is  used,  defaulting  to
           ~/.config/elvish/rc.elv if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset or empty.

         • On Windows, %AppData%\elvish\rc.elv is used.

       If the RC file doesn’t exist, Elvish does not execute any RC file.

   Database file
       Elvish  in  interactive  mode  uses a database file to keep command and directory history.
       Its path is determined as follows:

       • If the legacy ~/.elvish/db exists, it  is  used  (this  will  be  ignored  in  a  future
         version).

       • Otherwise:

         • On  UNIX  (including  macOS),  $XDG_DATA_HOME/elvish/db.bolt  is  used,  defaulting to
           ~/.local/state/elvish/db.bolt if $XDG_DATA_HOME is unset or empty.

         • On Windows, %LocalAppData%\elvish\db.bolt is used.

Running a script

       Invoking Elvish with one or more arguments will cause Elvish to execute a  script  (unless
       there are flags that suppress this behavior).

       If the -c flag is given, the first argument is executed as a single code chunk.

       If the -c flag is not given, the first argument is taken as a filename, and the content of
       the file is executed as a single code chunk.

       The remaining arguments are put in $args.

Module search directories

       When importing modules, Elvish searches the following directories:

       • On UNIX:

         1. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/elvish/lib, defaulting to ~/.config/elvish/lib  if  $XDG_CONFIG_HOME
            is unset or empty;

         2. $XDG_DATA_HOME/elvish/lib,  defaulting to ~/.local/share/elvish/lib if $XDG_DATA_HOME
            is unset or empty;

         3. Paths specified  in  the  colon-delimited  $XDG_DATA_DIRS,  followed  by  elvish/lib,
            defaulting to /usr/local/share/elvish/lib and /usr/share/elvish/lib if $XDG_DATA_DIRS
            is unset or empty.

       • On Windows: %AppData%\elvish\lib, followed by %LocalAppData%\elvish\lib.

       If the legacy ~/.elvish/lib directory exists, it is also searched.

Other command-line flags

       Running elvish -help lists all supported command-line flags, which are not repeated here.