---
id: 66bac9cf-1b1e-42f5-903d-d28a9d5e1e1a
type: decision
title: "Fish + bash hybrid shell strategy: fish interactive, bash for scripts/tools"
tags: [fish, bash, shell, claude-code, architecture, decision, homelab, shell-config, nobara]
importance: 0.6
confidence: 0.8
created: "2026-02-27T05:33:08.745935+00:00"
updated: "2026-03-01T22:02:48.107795+00:00"
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---

# Fish + Bash Hybrid Shell Strategy

## Decision
Use fish as the interactive shell for its superior autocompletion and syntax highlighting, while keeping bash as the script executor for all tooling.

## Implementation
Set `set -x SHELL /bin/bash` inside fish's `config.fish`. This makes `$SHELL` report `/bin/bash` to any tool that checks it (Claude Code, scripts, CI helpers) even though the interactive session is running under fish.

## Rationale
- Fish provides excellent interactive UX: autosuggestions, syntax highlighting, smart completions — out of the box, no plugins needed
- Fish is POSIX-incompatible, so it cannot safely be used as a script executor
- Bash is the lingua franca for scripts — universally compatible, no subtle edge cases
- Zsh was considered as alternative (nearly POSIX-compatible + plugins like zsh-autosuggestions + zsh-syntax-highlighting), but "nearly" POSIX-compatible creates subtle issues and requires plugin management overhead

## Affected Tools
- Claude Code Bash tool: uses `$SHELL` → gets bash, works correctly
- Shell scripts with `#!/bin/bash`: unaffected by interactive shell choice
- Starship prompt: works identically in fish, zsh, bash

## Trade-offs
- Fish config syntax (`set -x VAR val`, `if status is-interactive`) must be learned — it is not bash-compatible
- Two shell configs to potentially maintain (`~/.config/fish/config.fish` for interactive, and any bash rc for login/script contexts)
- Benefit: interactive experience is dramatically better than plain zsh without plugins