Expand snippets matching the current prefix with tab in Atom.

Select the Atom > Open Your Snippets menu to add your own snippets.

Snippets files are stored in a package's snippets/ folder and also loaded from ~/.atom/snippets.cson.

Snippet files can be either .json or .cson.

'.source.js':
  'console.log':
    'prefix': 'log'
    'body': 'console.log(${1:"crash"});$2'

The outermost keys are the selectors where this snippets should be active. If you would want the snippet to be active in python, for example, you would use '.source.python'.

The next level of keys are the snippet names.

Under each snippet name is a prefix that should trigger the snippet and a body to insert when the snippet is triggered.

$ followed by a number are the tabs stops which can be cycled between by pressing tab once a snippet has been triggered.

The above example adds a log snippet to JavaScript files that would expand to.

console.log("crash");

The string "crash" would be initially selected and pressing tab again would place the cursor after the ;

You can also use multi-line syntax using """ for larger templates:

'.source.js':
  'if, else if, else':
    'prefix': 'ieie'
    'body': """
      if (${1:true}) {
        $2
      } else if (${3:false}) {
        $4
      } else {
        $5
      }
    """

Including a literal closing brace inside the text provided by a snippet's tab stop will close that tab stop early. To prevent that, escape the brace with two backslashes, like so:

'body': """
  ${1:function () {
    statements;
  \\}
  this line is also included in the snippet tab;
  }
  """