You don't. See the "INITIALIZATION FILE" section of the readline manual (`man readline`): > Readline is customized by putting commands in an initialization file > (the inputrc file). The name of this file is taken from the value > of the INPUTRC environment variable. If that variable is unset, the > default is ~/.inputrc. If that file does not exist or cannot be > read, the ultimate default is /etc/inputrc. _When a program which > uses the readline library starts up, the init file is read, and the > key bindings and variables are set._