diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 91a03d4f6..621a2df7b 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -396,6 +396,15 @@ dependencies = [
  "strsim",
 ]
 
+[[package]]
+name = "clap_complete"
+version = "4.5.1"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+checksum = "885e4d7d5af40bfb99ae6f9433e292feac98d452dcb3ec3d25dfe7552b77da8c"
+dependencies = [
+ "clap",
+]
+
 [[package]]
 name = "clap_derive"
 version = "4.5.0"
@@ -2602,6 +2611,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "byte-unit",
  "cfg-if",
  "clap",
+ "clap_complete",
  "error-chain",
  "filetime",
  "flate2",
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index f63747a40..33b796f0b 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -95,6 +95,7 @@ watchexec-signals = "2.0"
 watchexec-supervisor = "1.0"
 zip = { version = "^0.6", default-features = false, features = ["deflate"] }
 time = "0.3.36"
+clap_complete = "4.5.1"
 
 [features]
 default = ["geturl-reqwest", "serialization"]
diff --git a/docs/src/ref/v2cli.md b/docs/src/ref/v2cli.md
index 4d18d794e..286853200 100644
--- a/docs/src/ref/v2cli.md
+++ b/docs/src/ref/v2cli.md
@@ -40,6 +40,33 @@ nextonic build
 You can use various Unix `argv[0]` hacks to achieve this, or you can just rename
 or symlink the `tectonic` binary to `nextonic` manually.
 
+## Shell completions
+
+Shell completions for the `nextonic` executable can be generated using
+`nextonic show shell-completions`, plus the name of your shell. Currently,
+completions are only available for the `nextonic` command.
+
+As an example, you can generate shell completions for zsh and save it to a
+file with the following command:
+
+```zsh
+nextonic show shell-completions zsh > _nextonic
+```
+
+You can then move the completion file to a location where zsh can auto load;
+for example, `/usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions` would probably work for
+most Unix systems. Alternatively, you can evaluate the completions directly
+in you `~/.zshrc`, e.g.
+
+```zsh
+eval "$(nextonic show shell-completions zsh)"
+```
+
+Currently supported shells are listed in the `--help` text:
+
+```zsh
+nextonic show shell-completions --help
+```
 
 ## External tools
 
diff --git a/src/bin/tectonic/compile.rs b/src/bin/tectonic/compile.rs
index 25c243f1d..99a55213f 100644
--- a/src/bin/tectonic/compile.rs
+++ b/src/bin/tectonic/compile.rs
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ use tectonic::{
 #[derive(Debug, Parser)]
 pub struct CompileOptions {
     /// The file to process, or "-" to process the standard input stream
-    #[arg(name = "input")]
+    #[arg(name = "input", value_hint = clap::ValueHint::FilePath)]
     input: String,
 
     /// The name of the "format" file used to initialize the TeX engine
diff --git a/src/bin/tectonic/v2cli/commands/show.rs b/src/bin/tectonic/v2cli/commands/show.rs
index f24e08749..dc5b44427 100644
--- a/src/bin/tectonic/v2cli/commands/show.rs
+++ b/src/bin/tectonic/v2cli/commands/show.rs
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
-use clap::Parser;
+use clap::{CommandFactory, Parser};
 use tectonic::{config::PersistentConfig, errors::Result};
 use tectonic_status_base::StatusBackend;
 
-use crate::v2cli::{CommandCustomizations, TectonicCommand};
+use crate::v2cli::{CommandCustomizations, TectonicCommand, V2CliOptions};
 
 /// `show`: Show various useful pieces of information.
 #[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq, Parser)]
@@ -16,18 +16,24 @@ enum ShowCommands {
     #[command(name = "user-cache-dir")]
     /// Print the location of the default per-user cache directory
     UserCacheDir(ShowUserCacheDirCommand),
+
+    #[command(name = "shell-completions")]
+    /// Print shell completions code for some given shell
+    ShellCompletions(ShowShellCompletionsCommand),
 }
 
 impl TectonicCommand for ShowCommand {
     fn customize(&self, cc: &mut CommandCustomizations) {
         match &self.command {
             ShowCommands::UserCacheDir(c) => c.customize(cc),
+            ShowCommands::ShellCompletions(c) => c.customize(cc),
         }
     }
 
     fn execute(self, config: PersistentConfig, status: &mut dyn StatusBackend) -> Result<i32> {
         match self.command {
             ShowCommands::UserCacheDir(c) => c.execute(config, status),
+            ShowCommands::ShellCompletions(c) => c.execute(config, status),
         }
     }
 }
@@ -47,3 +53,29 @@ impl ShowUserCacheDirCommand {
         Ok(0)
     }
 }
+
+#[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq, Parser)]
+struct ShowShellCompletionsCommand {
+    /// Target shell for the generated completion code
+    shell: clap_complete::Shell,
+}
+
+impl ShowShellCompletionsCommand {
+    fn customize(&self, cc: &mut CommandCustomizations) {
+        cc.always_stderr = true;
+    }
+
+    /// Generates shell completions at runtime
+    fn execute(self, _config: PersistentConfig, _status: &mut dyn StatusBackend) -> Result<i32> {
+        // The current v1 & v2 cli mixture makes it a bit difficult to offer
+        // clean completions for the `tectonic` command, so for now we only
+        // target the `nextonic` command exclusively for the v2 cli.
+        clap_complete::generate(
+            self.shell,
+            &mut V2CliOptions::command(),
+            "nextonic",
+            &mut std::io::stdout(),
+        );
+        Ok(0)
+    }
+}
diff --git a/tests/executable.rs b/tests/executable.rs
index a70c748fe..8e6365973 100644
--- a/tests/executable.rs
+++ b/tests/executable.rs
@@ -933,6 +933,19 @@ fn v2_dump_suffix() {
     assert!(saw_first && saw_second);
 }
 
+/// Checks that shell completions are correctly generated
+#[cfg(feature = "serialization")]
+#[test]
+fn v2_show_shell_completions() {
+    let (_tempdir, temppath) = setup_v2();
+    let output = run_tectonic(&temppath, &["-X", "show", "shell-completions", "zsh"]);
+    success_or_panic(&output);
+
+    if !String::from_utf8_lossy(&output.stdout).contains("compdef _nextonic nextonic") {
+        panic!("shell completions generation failed.")
+    }
+}
+
 const SHELL_ESCAPE_TEST_DOC: &str = r"\immediate\write18{mkdir shellwork}
 \immediate\write18{echo 123 >shellwork/persist}
 \ifnum123=\input{shellwork/persist}