kickstart.nvim

kickstart-nvim.mp4

Introduction

A starting point for Neovim that is:

• Small
• Single-file (with examples of moving to multi-file)
• Documented
• Modular

This repo is meant to be used by YOU to begin your Neovim journey; remove the things you don't use and add what you miss.

Kickstart.nvim targets only the latest 'stable' and latest 'nightly' of Neovim. If you are experiencing issues, please make sure you have the latest versions.

Distribution Alternatives:

• LazyVim: A delightful distribution maintained by @folke (the author of lazy.nvim, the package manager used here)

Installation

Install External Dependencies

External Requirements:

• Basic utils: git, make, unzip, C Compiler (gcc)
• ripgrep
• Clipboard tool (xclip/xsel/win32yank or other depending on the platform)
• A Nerd Font: optional, provides various icons
  • if you have it set vim.g.have_nerd_font in init.lua to true
• Emoji fonts (Ubuntu only, and only if you want emoji!) sudo apt install fonts-noto-color-emoji
• Language Setup:
  • If you want to write Typescript, you need npm
  • If you want to write Golang, you will need go
  • etc.

Note

See Install Recipes for additional Windows and Linux specific notes and quick install snippets

Install Kickstart

Note

Backup your previous configuration (if any exists)

Requirements:

• Make sure to review the readmes of the plugins if you are experiencing errors. In particular:
  • ripgrep is required for multiple telescope pickers.
• See Windows Installation if you have trouble with telescope-fzf-native

Neovim's configurations are located under the following paths, depending on your OS:

OS	PATH
Linux	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nvim, ~/.config/nvim
MacOS	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nvim, ~/.config/nvim
Windows (cmd)	%userprofile%\AppData\Local\nvim\
Windows (powershell)	$env:USERPROFILE\AppData\Local\nvim\

Recommended Step

Fork this repo so that you have your own copy that you can modify, then install by cloning the fork to your machine using one of the commands below, depending on your OS.

Note

Your fork's URL will be something like this: https://github.com/<your_github_username>/kickstart.nvim.git

You likely want to remove lazy-lock.json from your fork's .gitignore file too - it's ignored in the kickstart repo to make maintenance easier, but it's recommended to track it in version control.

Clone kickstart.nvim

Note

If following the recommended step above (i.e., forking the repo), replace nvim-lua with <your_github_username> in the commands below

Linux and Mac

• on Linux and Mac

git clone https://github.com/nvim-lua/kickstart.nvim.git "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}"/nvim

• on Windows (cmd)

git clone https://github.com/nvim-lua/kickstart.nvim.git "%localappdata%\nvim"

• on Windows (powershell)

git clone https://github.com/nvim-lua/kickstart.nvim.git "${env:LOCALAPPDATA}\nvim"

Post Installation

Start Neovim

nvim

That's it! Lazy will install all the plugins you have. Use :Lazy to view the current plugin status. Hit q to close the window.

Read The Friendly Documentation

Read through the init.lua file in your configuration folder for more information about extending and exploring Neovim. That also includes examples of adding popularly requested plugins.

[!NOTE] For more information about a particular plugin check its repository's documentation.

Getting Started

Pull-requests are welcome. The goal of this repo is not to create a Neovim configuration framework, but to offer a starting template that shows, by example, available features in Neovim. Some things that will not be included:

• Custom language server configuration (null-ls templates)
• Theming beyond a default colorscheme necessary for LSP highlight groups

Each PR, especially those which increase the line count, should have a description as to why the PR is necessary.

FAQ

• What should I do if I already have a pre-existing Neovim configuration?
  • You should back it up and then delete all associated files.
  • This includes your existing init.lua and the Neovim files in ~/.local which can be deleted with rm -rf ~/.local/share/nvim/
• Can I keep my existing configuration in parallel to kickstart?
  • Yes! You can use NVIM_APPNAME=nvim-NAME to maintain multiple configurations. For example you can install the kickstart configuration in ~/.config/nvim-kickstart and create an alias:

    alias nvim-kickstart='NVIM_APPNAME="nvim-kickstart" nvim'
    

    When you run Neovim using nvim-kickstart alias it will use the alternative config directory and the matching local directory ~/.local/share/nvim-kickstart. You can apply this approach to any Neovim distribution that you would like to try out.
• What if I want to "uninstall" this configuration:
  • See lazy.nvim uninstall information
• Why is the kickstart init.lua a single file? Wouldn't it make sense to split it into multiple files?
  • The main purpose of kickstart is to serve as a teaching tool and a reference configuration that someone can easily git clone as a basis for their own. As you progress in learning Neovim and Lua, you might consider splitting init.lua into smaller parts. A fork of kickstart that does this while maintaining the same functionality is available here:
    • kickstart-modular.nvim
  • Discussions on this topic can be found here:
    • Restructure the configuration
    • Reorganize init.lua into a multi-file setup

Windows Installation

Installation may require installing build tools, and updating the run command for telescope-fzf-native

See telescope-fzf-native documentation for more details

This requires:

• Install CMake, and the Microsoft C++ Build Tools on Windows

{'nvim-telescope/telescope-fzf-native.nvim', build = 'cmake -S. -Bbuild -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release && cmake --build build --config Release && cmake --install build --prefix build' }

Windows with gcc/make using chocolatey

Alternatively, one can install gcc and make which don't require changing the config, the easiest way is to use choco:

1. install chocolatey either follow the instructions on the page or use winget, run in cmd as admin:

winget install --accept-source-agreements chocolatey.chocolatey

2. install all requirements using choco, exit the previous cmd and open a new one so that choco path is set, and run in cmd as admin:

choco install -y neovim git ripgrep wget fd unzip gzip mingw make

WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

wsl --install
wsl
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:neovim-ppa/unstable -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install make gcc ripgrep unzip git xclip neovim

Linux Install

Ubuntu Install Steps

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:neovim-ppa/unstable -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install make gcc ripgrep unzip git xclip neovim

Debian Install Steps

sudo apt update
sudo apt install make gcc ripgrep unzip git xclip curl

# Now we install nvim
curl -LO https://github.com/neovim/neovim/releases/latest/download/nvim-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
sudo rm -rf /opt/nvim-linux-x86_64
sudo mkdir -p /opt/nvim-linux-x86_64
sudo chmod a+rX /opt/nvim-linux-x86_64
sudo tar -C /opt -xzf nvim-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

# make it available in /usr/local/bin, distro installs to /usr/bin
sudo ln -sf /opt/nvim-linux-x86_64/bin/nvim /usr/local/bin/

Fedora Install Steps

sudo dnf install -y gcc make git ripgrep fd-find unzip neovim

Arch Install Steps

sudo pacman -S --noconfirm --needed gcc make git ripgrep fd unzip neovim