Last year I wrote my neovim workflow 2023 and a little bit has changed since then, so I’ll write an updated version. Here’s where my config starts: https://github.com/hyperboly/nix-dotfiles/blob/master/user/neovim/neovim.nix
This article is written for people that have used neovim before, but did not go deep into the configuration part (me). Some concepts in neovim are assumed, nix concepts are explained.
What’s Different
- OS
- Switched to kickstart.nvim as the base and not using my own
NixOS
Last year, I was using Arch Linux and had an easier time integrating neovim into my system. This time, since I’m on NixOS, I had to configure nix for neovim. Packages for neovim plugins come from nixpkgs and neovim has to use those “system” packages instead of it’s own package manager like packer.nvim or lazy.nvim.
Aside from that, most of the configuration in Lua can remain the same.
File structure
The directory structure looks like this:
user/neovim/
├── conf
│ ├── init.lua
│ └── lua
│ ├── custom
│ │ └── plugins
│ │ └── init.lua
│ ├── keymaps.lua
│ ├── kickstart
│ │ ├── health.lua
│ │ └── plugins
│ │ ├── autopairs.lua
│ │ ├── cmp.lua
│ │ ├── colorscheme.lua
│ │ └── ...
│ ├── lazy-bootstrap.lua
│ ├── lazy-plugins.lua
│ └── options.lua
└── neovim.nix
I didn’t delete some files from kickstart that aren’t needed in nix, but they don’t take up too much space.
neovim.nix
This configuration is used by home-manager, do not use this with the system package because neovim plugins do not need to be root level.
Let me show you how my neovim.nix file is organized section by section.
I first set some variables before I get to the actual nix code.
Here, I’m defining toLua and toLuaFile, so that later when I want to use Lua code in this nix file, I just have to use these variables to convert the Lua.
let
toLua = str: "lua << EOF\n${str}\nEOF\n";
toLuaFile = file: "lua << EOF\n${builtins.readFile file}\nEOF\n";
in
Here I define the packages that I want in neovim. Not plugins for neovim, just packages.
extraPackages = with pkgs-unstable; [
gnumake
unzip
nodePackages_latest.nodejs
cargo
lua-language-server
nil
yaml-language-server
ccls
docker-compose-language-service
ansible-language-server
bash-language-server
];
The next section I define the packages I want for my plugins, also defining the config/config file that goes with the plugin (similar to the plugins directory I had last year).
This is where those variables come in handy.
plugins = with pkgs-unstable.vimPlugins; [
{
plugin = nvim-lspconfig;
config = toLuaFile ./conf/lua/kickstart/plugins/lspconfig.lua;
}
{
plugin = comment-nvim;
config = toLua "require(\"Comment\").setup()";
}
{
plugin = catppuccin-nvim;
config = toLuaFile ./conf/lua/kickstart/plugins/colorscheme.lua;
}
{
plugin = telescope-nvim;
config = toLuaFile ./conf/lua/kickstart/plugins/telescope.lua;
}
{
plugin = which-key-nvim;
config = toLuaFile ./conf/lua/kickstart/plugins/which-key.lua;
}
{
plugin = gitsigns-nvim;
config = toLuaFile ./conf/lua/kickstart/plugins/gitsigns.lua;
}
{
plugin = nvim-cmp;
config = toLuaFile ./conf/lua/kickstart/plugins/cmp.lua;
}
{
plugin = mini-nvim;
config = toLuaFile ./conf/lua/kickstart/plugins/mini.lua;
}
{
plugin = todo-comments-nvim;
config = toLuaFile ./conf/lua/kickstart/plugins/todo-comments.lua;
}
{
plugin = (nvim-treesitter.withPlugins (p: [ # below are just packages that treesitter requires, different package for different languages
p.tree-sitter-nix
p.tree-sitter-vim
p.tree-sitter-vimdoc
p.tree-sitter-bash
p.tree-sitter-lua
p.tree-sitter-luadoc
p.tree-sitter-python
p.tree-sitter-c
p.tree-sitter-markdown
]));
config = toLuaFile ./conf/lua/kickstart/plugins/treesitter.lua;
}
telescope-fzf-native-nvim
cmp_luasnip
cmp-nvim-lsp
nvim-cmp
luasnip
friendly-snippets
lualine-nvim
vim-nix
fidget-nvim
];
This next part defines some extra lua code for the default options, key binds, and the healthcheck that kickstart.nvim includes.
extraLuaConfig = ''
${builtins.readFile ./conf/lua/options.lua}
${builtins.readFile ./conf/lua/keymaps.lua}
${builtins.readFile ./conf/lua/kickstart/health.lua}
'';
The final section just makes it so that when you type vi vim or use vi for viewing diffs, it will default to this configuration.
viAlias = true;
vimAlias = true;
vimdiffAlias = true;
Tmux
Tmux configuration remains the same: read the tmux section from last year.
This is how I wrote the config in home-manager:
programs.tmux = {
enable = true;
terminal = "xterm-256color";
prefix = "C-f";
extraConfig = ''
set -g default-terminal "screen-256color"
set -as terminal-features ",xterm-256color:RGB"
set -g allow-passthrough on
set -ga update-environment TERM
set -ga update-environment TERM_PROGRAM
'';
};
Yazi?
This year, I’ve also been trying to integrate yazi into my workflow, but it’s not very convenient.
Yazi is a “⚡️ Blazing fast terminal file manager written in Rust, based on async I/O.”
It’s a file manager like lf or ranger, but it seems to just get in the way of my workflow.
I use it to organize multiple files because it’s able to select files and such, but it doesn’t have telescope so I work slower with it.
I would prefer to just use neovim’s built in :Explore, which I have binded to space+e.
I think I will continue to use Yazi, but not in my normal workflow and only when I need to organize multiple files.
How it looks like when writing
