Fish Shell — abbr vs alias Patterns

Fish shell offers two ways to create command shortcuts: abbr (abbreviations) and alias. The choice between them affects transparency and interaction with third-party Fish plugins like forgit. Using abbr for expanded commands and alias for invisible substitutions is the idiomatic Fish pattern.

Key Points

abbr expands in the command line before execution — the user sees the full command in the prompt history, making actions transparent and auditable
alias runs as a hidden substitution — the original alias name appears in history, not the underlying command
Use abbr for git/docker/uv shortcuts where seeing the expanded command is useful; use alias for transparent replacements like ls→lsd, cat→bat
Fish abbreviations can conflict with forgit plugin functions — forgit defines gco, grb, glo, etc. as interactive functions; naming an abbreviation the same will shadow the forgit function
Resolve forgit conflicts by renaming your abbreviation (e.g., gco → gch for git checkout)

Details

abbr vs alias Decision Table

Use case	Use	Why
`git checkout` → `gch`	`abbr`	Expands visibly — you see `git checkout` in prompt
`docker compose` → `dc`	`abbr`	Expands — clear what's running
`ls` → `lsd`	`alias`	Should be invisible — `ls` stays in history
`cat` → `bat`	`alias`	Transparent replacement — looks like `cat`
`forgit` interactive commands	none	Provided by forgit plugin — don't shadow

Defining Abbreviations

# In ~/.config/fish/config.fish or ~/.config/fish/abbreviations.fish

# Git shortcuts (expand visibly)
abbr --add gst 'git status'
abbr --add gch 'git checkout'    # not gco — conflicts with forgit
abbr --add gpl 'git pull'
abbr --add gps 'git push'
abbr --add glo 'git log --oneline'  # renamed — forgit uses glo too

# Docker
abbr --add dc 'docker compose'
abbr --add dcu 'docker compose up -d'
abbr --add dcd 'docker compose down'

# uv (Python package manager)
abbr --add uvr 'uv run'
abbr --add uvs 'uv sync'

Defining Aliases (Transparent Replacements)

# In ~/.config/fish/config.fish

# These should feel like the original command
alias ls='lsd'
alias cat='bat --paging=never'
alias grep='rg'
alias find='fd'

Forgit Conflict Resolution

forgit (interactive git fzf plugin) defines these functions by default:

forgit function	What it does
`gco`	Interactive `git checkout`
`grb`	Interactive `git rebase`
`glo`	Interactive `git log`
`gbl`	Interactive `git blame`
`gd`	Interactive `git diff`

If you have abbreviations with the same names, the abbreviation wins on expansion but the forgit function is still reachable by full name. The practical fix: rename your abbreviation to avoid the conflict (gco → gch, glo → glg).

Viewing All Current Abbreviations

abbr          # list all abbreviations
alias         # list all aliases
functions     # list all functions (includes forgit)

Persistence

Both abbr and alias defined in config.fish persist across sessions. abbr --add called interactively creates a universal variable that also persists — but storing abbreviations in config.fish is more portable for dotfiles repos.

wiki/concepts/fish-shell-path-config — Fish PATH configuration and SSH aliases as Fish functions
wiki/dotfiles/_index — full dotfiles topic: Kitty, Fish, WezTerm, LazyVim, Rust CLI tools

Sources

daily/2026-04-17.md — Fish abbreviations setup session; abbr chosen over alias for git/docker/uv commands; gco/grb/glo conflicts with forgit resolved by renaming abbreviations; transparent replacements (ls→lsd, cat→bat) kept as alias

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