JetBrains Rider 2023.3 Help

Automatic completion

JetBrains Rider's automatic completion suggests names of classes, methods, variables, keywords, and any other symbols that are available within the current visibility scope including extension methods that were previously imported. Many other context-specific suggestions, like live templates, code generation suggestions, unit test categories are also available in the completion list.

By default, suggestions of automatic completion also include items from Second basic completion. If you want to change the default behavior, use the corresponding controls on the Editor | General | Code Completion page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S.

The list of auto-completion suggestions is the same as that of Basic completion, but it appears as soon as you start typing. As you type, the list narrows down to show only items that match what you have entered.

You can enable or disable auto-completion using the Show suggestions as you type checkbox on the Editor | General | Code Completion page of JetBrains Rider settings .

The best match in the auto-completion popup can be pre-selected either with hard or with soft selection:

  • Hard selection (blue in most color themes) lets you insert the selected item with Enter, Tab, Space, as well as dot, open parenthesis, open bracket, semicolon, and so on (depending on the context). Completion on Space can be enabled or disabled with the Whitespace inserts selected suggestion... checkbox on the Editor | General | Code Completion page of JetBrains Rider settings .

    JetBrains Rider. Auto-completion list with hard selection.
  • Soft selection (grey in most color themes) will gently highlight the best match, but it will not interfere with typing — you can either continue typing to close the popup or choose the desired item manually. But if you see that the highlighted item is suggested correctly, you can still insert it by pressing Tab. Optionally you can also use Enter for inserting the suggestion with the soft selection — this can be enabled with the Enter inserts suggestion... checkbox on the Editor | General | Code Completion page of JetBrains Rider settings .

    JetBrains Rider. Auto-completion list with soft selection.

To choose the pre-selection mode, use the Preselect the best match to insert it by pressing dot, parentheses, and other keys checkbox on the Editor | General | Code Completion page of JetBrains Rider settings If selected, the best match in the auto-completion popup is pre-selected with hard selection, otherwise with soft selection.

When you use code completion over existing code items, you can either insert the selected completion suggestion before the existing item by pressing Enter or replace the existing identifier with the selected suggestion by pressing Tab. If necessary, you can change the default shortcuts on the Keymap page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S (look for the Choose Lookup Item and Choose Lookup Item Replace actions) .

By default, automatic completion support CamelHumps, that is you can type the initial letters of compound name parts and the name will appear in the list of suggestions.

When you select items in completion lists using keyboard, the selection will jump to the first item after the last item and vice versa. You can disable this behavior by clearing Cyclic scrolling in list on the Appearance and Behavior | Appearance page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S.

Complete method calls

When choosing a method call from the completion list, by default JetBrains Rider automatically inserts a pair of parentheses ( ) and sets the caret between them. You can change this behavior with the Automatically insert parenthesis after completion option on the Editor | General | Code Completion page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S.

Note that you can type the opening parenthesis ( instead of Tab or Enter when a method is selected in the completion list. In this case the pair of parentheses will be inserted regardless of this option.

You can access code completion settings right from the completion popup — click at the bottom of the popup and select Code Completion Settings.

Exclude types and namespaces from completion suggestions

You may want some types or namespaces not to be suggested, for example, if you have something similar to a system type in your solution, say MyFramework.MyCollections.List, but you are not actually using it. To exclude such items from the suggestions, add them to the Exclude from import and completion list on the Editor | General | Auto Import page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S.

The format of the entries is Fully.Qualified.Name, Fully.Qualified.Name.Prefix*, or *Fully.Qualified.Name.Suffix. Generic types are specified as List`1.

Examples of automatic completion

You can use the following examples to get an idea of how automatic completion works with various code items:

Suggesting type-based variable names

Commonly used names for fields and variables are suggested depending on their type.

If you enter a variable name prefix, JetBrains Rider will append it to each suggested name:

JetBrains Rider: Suggesting type-based variable names in code completion

You can specify a prefix and/or a suffix for all new variable names on the Editor | Code Style | C# page of JetBrains Rider settings . If you do that, completion items will be modified accordingly:

JetBrains Rider: Suggesting type-based variable names in code completion

Suggesting members of a class

JetBrains Rider: Suggesting members of a class in code completion

Suggesting visible types

JetBrains Rider: Suggesting visible types in code completion

Suggesting C# keywords

JetBrains Rider: Suggesting C# keywords in code completion

Suggesting 'this' keyword for static methods in static classes

JetBrains Rider: Suggesting 'this' keyword for static methods in static classes

Completion for enum members

JetBrains Rider: Completion for enum members
JetBrains Rider: Completion for enum members

Using CamelHumps in code completion

JetBrains Rider: Using CamelHumps in code completion

Completion for unresolved symbols

Early used names of data types and their members are suggested, even if they are not declared anywhere in the code and cannot be resolved.

JetBrains Rider: Completion for unresolved symbols

Completion for argument names

JetBrains Rider: Completion for argument names

Suggesting members of a dynamic type

JetBrains Rider: Suggesting members of a dynamic type

Suggesting existing partial classes

When you type partial class, names of partial classes in the current scope are added to the suggestions list, thus helping you to quickly create new parts of existing partial classes.

Suggestions for existing partial classes in JetBrains Rider code completion
Last modified: 21 March 2024