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tailscale-app: Generate completions for the installed CLI. #223049

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tailscale-app: Generate completions for the installed CLI. #223049

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lgarron
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@lgarron lgarron commented Aug 7, 2025

The tailscale-app cask wraps /Applications/Tailscale.app/Contents/MacOS/Tailscale and places it into the path as tailscale.

This command can generate its own completions. Support for this was added to the headless tailscale formula at Homebrew/homebrew-core#172679

This PR adds the same support to the tailscale-app cask, using the same mechanism.

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@lgarron
tailscale-app: Generate completions for the installed CLI.
45f92ba 
The `tailscale-app` cask wraps `/Applications/Tailscale.app/Contents/MacOS/Tailscale` and places it into the path as `tailscale`.

This command can generate its own completions. Support for this was added to the headless `tailscale` *formula* at Homebrew/homebrew-core#172679

This PR adds the same support to the `tailscale-app` cask, using the same mechanism.
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lgarron commented Aug 7, 2025

  • brew audit --cask --online <cask> is error-free.
  • brew style --fix <cask> reports no offenses.

I'm on cellular internet right now and I don't have a local checkout, so these are impractical to run.

However, brew reinstall tailscale-app on the modified cask successfully installed the completions.

@lgarron lgarron force-pushed the patch-3 branch 2 times, most recently from 9a81fc9 to 45f92ba Compare August 7, 2025 07:49
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lgarron commented Aug 7, 2025
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.

Casks/t/tailscale-app.rb Outdated
@@ -28,6 +28,10 @@
EOS
end

def install
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The linter wants me to rewrite this to:

define_method(:install)

However, this also causes CI to fail: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/actions/runs/16798346181/job/47573677907

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.

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It looks like install is not allowed by the linter, even though it is run by brew install --cask? I'm going to try postflight.

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lgarron commented Aug 7, 2025 •
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Okay, I'm at a bit of a loss. It seems that no casks use generate_completions_from_executable(…).

They all use:

  • bash_completion
  • fish_completion
  • zsh_completion

That only leaves out powershell from the completions supported by the tailscale CLI, which I guess is fine given that this cask is for the macOS app?

However, these assume that there is a completion file rather than a completion command whose output provides the completions. I'm not sure what to do.

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oschrenk commented Aug 7, 2025

Apart from the formula issues, I think you will find that the completion command will fail after a fresh install.

❯ tailscale completion
Error: CLI credentials are not available BadResponse

Even for help you need to be logged in

❯ tailscale --help
Error: CLI credentials are not available BadResponse

So (I'm not a maintainer nor an expert in brew) but I think this will be an issue.

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lgarron commented Aug 8, 2025 •
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Apart from the formula issues, I think you will find that the completion command will fail after a fresh install.

Ah, that's really unfortunate if that's the case.

However, I just purged my entire Tailscale install (using AppCleaner and brew uninstall tailscale-app) and ran brew install tailscale-app from scratch. I can't reproduce that error, even though I'm logged out. 🤔

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oschrenk commented Aug 8, 2025

I think it was because I had another VPN running. Once I stopped that one, I was able issue CLI command.

bevanjkay
bevanjkay reviewed Aug 9, 2025
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Casks/t/tailscale-app.rb
Comment on lines +31 to +33
install do
generate_completions_from_executable("#{appdir}/Tailscale.app/Contents/MacOS/Tailscale", "completion")
end
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@lgarron Thanks for trying to get this work, but I don't believe it is possible to generate completions in this way for a Cask, only with a Formula. The completion stanzas available only install the completions from an already built file.

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@lgarron lgarron Aug 9, 2025 •
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I see. It would be a shame to lose completions just because I'm installing tailscale-app rather than the tailscale formula, though.

I'm assuming there's a good reason for the incompatibility, or at least some engineering blockers.

As a workaround, would it be safe to write the completions to temporary files and then load those?

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Unfortunately, it really just comes down to how Casks and Formula differ.
Formula are built on CI, and Casks are simply a way of installing software as provided upstream in an automatable way.

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Closing as this is not possible. Sorry.

@p-linnane p-linnane closed this Aug 14, 2025
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lgarron commented Aug 14, 2025

Closing as this is not possible. Sorry.

Alright, thanks for the help. I don't suppose there is an existing issue to track adding this functionality?

lgarron added a commit to lgarron/dotfiles that referenced this pull request Aug 14, 2025
@lgarron
Switch to tailscale-app cask and add a workaround for Tailscale com…
0d5c81a 
…pletions.

I'm using `tailscale-app` instead of the previous combination (the Mac App Store version + `tailscale` CLI), because the latter borked my Tailscale connection when the binary and the app got ouf of sync. The `tailscale` CLI linked by `tailscale-app` is inside the `.app`, so it should prevent that issue.

See Homebrew/homebrew-cask#223049 for why the workaround for completions is needed.
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No, there isn't. This is the first time we've encountered this AFAIK.

lgarron added a commit to lgarron/dotfiles that referenced this pull request Aug 15, 2025
@lgarron
Switch to tailscale-app cask and add a workaround for Tailscale com…
4d7c7a6 
…pletions.

I'm using `tailscale-app` instead of the previous combination (the Mac App Store version + `tailscale` CLI), because the latter borked my Tailscale connection when the binary and the app got ouf of sync. The `tailscale` CLI linked by `tailscale-app` is inside the `.app`, so it should prevent that issue.

See Homebrew/homebrew-cask#223049 for why the workaround for completions is needed.
lgarron added a commit to lgarron/dotfiles that referenced this pull request Aug 15, 2025
@lgarron
Switch to tailscale-app cask and add a workaround for Tailscale com…
b8a31e0 
…pletions.

I'm using `tailscale-app` instead of the previous combination (the Mac App Store version + `tailscale` CLI), because the latter borked my Tailscale connection when the binary and the app got ouf of sync. The `tailscale` CLI linked by `tailscale-app` is inside the `.app`, so it should prevent that issue.

See Homebrew/homebrew-cask#223049 for why the workaround for completions is needed.
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