How do you set a minimum number of characters for Bash tab completion?

Solution 1:

You can tell bash/completion to NOT try completion for an empty entry through the use of the 'no_empty_cmd_completion' shell option.

In your .bashrc (or alternate), enter this command:

shopt -s no_empty_cmd_completion

Exit your bash session and restart (or 'source .bashrc'), and pressing TAB at an empty prompt will just ignore you.

You can type the command at the prompt if you want to try it out beforehand.