kickstart.nvim

Introduction

A starting point for Neovim that is:

• Small
• Single-file
• Completely Documented

NOT a Neovim distribution, but instead a starting point for your configuration.

Installation

Install Neovim

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.

Install External Dependencies

Note

Backup your previous configuration (if any exists)

External Requirements:

• Basic utils: git, make, unzip, C Compiler (gcc)
• ripgrep
• Language Setup:
  • If want to write Typescript, you need npm
  • If want to write Golang, you will need go
  • etc.

Note

See Windows Installation to double check any additional Windows notes

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

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

Clone kickstart.nvim:

Linux and Mac

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

Windows

If you're using cmd.exe:

git clone https://github.com/nvim-lua/kickstart.nvim.git %userprofile%\AppData\Local\nvim\ 

If you're using powershell.exe

git clone https://github.com/nvim-lua/kickstart.nvim.git $env:USERPROFILE\AppData\Local\nvim\ 

Post Installation

Start Neovim

nvim

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

Read through the init.lua file in your configuration folder for more information about extending and exploring Neovim.

Getting Started

See Effective Neovim: Instant IDE, covering the previous version. Note: The install via init.lua is outdated, please follow the install instructions in this file instead. An updated video is coming soon.

Recommended Steps

Fork this repo (so that you have your own copy that you can modify) and then installing you can install to your machine using the methods above.

Note

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

Examples of adding popularly requested plugins

Adding autopairs

This will automatically install windwp/nvim-autopairs and enable it on startup. For more information, see documentation for lazy.nvim.

In the file: lua/custom/plugins/autopairs.lua, add:

-- File: lua/custom/plugins/autopairs.lua

return {
  "windwp/nvim-autopairs",
  -- Optional dependency
  dependencies = { 'hrsh7th/nvim-cmp' },
  config = function()
    require("nvim-autopairs").setup {}
    -- If you want to automatically add `(` after selecting a function or method
    local cmp_autopairs = require('nvim-autopairs.completion.cmp')
    local cmp = require('cmp')
    cmp.event:on(
      'confirm_done',
      cmp_autopairs.on_confirm_done()
    )
  end,
}

Adding a file tree plugin

This will install the tree plugin and add the command :Neotree for you. You can explore the documentation at neo-tree.nvim for more information.

In the file: lua/custom/plugins/filetree.lua, add:

-- Unless you are still migrating, remove the deprecated commands from v1.x
vim.cmd([[ let g:neo_tree_remove_legacy_commands = 1 ]])

return {
  "nvim-neo-tree/neo-tree.nvim",
  version = "*",
  dependencies = {
    "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim",
    "nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons", -- not strictly required, but recommended
    "MunifTanjim/nui.nvim",
  },
  config = function ()
    require('neo-tree').setup {}
  end,
}

FAQ

• What should I do if I already have a pre-existing neovim configuration?
  • You should back it up, then delete all files associated with it.
  • 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 exact 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' }