kickstart.nvim

A launch point for your personal nvim configuration

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README.md

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 at least the latest
stable version. Most likely, you want to install neovim via a package
manager.
To check your neovim version, run nvim --version and make sure it is not
below the latest
'stable' version. If
your chosen install method only gives you an outdated version of neovim, find
alternative installation methods below.

Install External Dependencies

External Requirements:
- Basic utils: git, make, unzip, C Compiler (gcc)
- ripgrep,
fd-find
- tree-sitter CLI
- 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)

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)| %localappdata%\nvim\ |
| Windows (powershell)| $env:LOCALAPPDATA\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

<details><summary> Linux and Mac </summary>

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

</details>

<details><summary> Windows </summary>

If you're using cmd.exe:

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

If you're using powershell.exe

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

</details>

Post Installation

Start Neovim

sh
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

The Only Video You Need to Get Started with Neovim

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:

text
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 use to 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

Install Recipes

Below you can find OS specific install instructions for Neovim and dependencies.

After installing all the dependencies continue with the Install Kickstart step.

#### Windows Installation

<details><summary>Windows with Microsoft C++ Build Tools and CMake</summary>
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

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

</details>
<details><summary>Windows with gcc/make using chocolatey</summary>
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:

text
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:

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

</details>
<details><summary>WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)</summary>

text
wsl --install
wsl
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:neovim-ppa/unstable -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install make gcc ripgrep fd-find tree-sitter-cli unzip git xclip neovim

</details>

#### Linux Install
<details><summary>Ubuntu Install Steps</summary>

text
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:neovim-ppa/unstable -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install make gcc ripgrep fd-find tree-sitter-cli unzip git xclip neovim

</details>
<details><summary>Debian Install Steps</summary>

text
sudo apt update
sudo apt install make gcc ripgrep fd-find tree-sitter-cli 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/

</details>
<details><summary>Fedora Install Steps</summary>

text
sudo dnf install -y gcc make git ripgrep fd-find tree-sitter-cli unzip neovim

</details>

<details><summary>Arch Install Steps</summary>

text
sudo pacman -S --noconfirm --needed gcc make git ripgrep fd tree-sitter-cli unzip neovim

</details>

Alternative neovim installation methods

For some systems it is not unexpected that the package manager installation
method
recommended by neovim is significantly behind. If that is the case for you,
pick one of the following methods that are known to deliver fresh neovim versions very quickly.
They have been picked for their popularity and because they make installing and updating
neovim to the latest versions easy. You can also find more detail about the
available methods being discussed
here.


<details><summary>Bob</summary>

Bob is a Neovim version manager for
all platforms. Simply install
rustup,
and run the following commands:

bash
rustup default stable
rustup update stable
cargo install bob-nvim
bob use stable

</details>

<details><summary>Homebrew</summary>

Homebrew is a package manager popular on Mac and Linux.
Simply install using brew install.

</details>

<details><summary>Flatpak</summary>

Flatpak is a package manager for applications that allows developers to package their applications
just once to make it available on all Linux systems. Simply install flatpak
and setup flathub to install neovim.

</details>

<details><summary>asdf and mise-en-place</summary>

asdf and mise are tool version managers,
mostly aimed towards project-specific tool versioning. However both support managing tools
globally in the user-space as well:

<details><summary>mise</summary>

Install mise, then run:

bash
mise plugins install neovim
mise use neovim@stable

</details>

<details><summary>asdf</summary>

Install asdf, then run:

bash
asdf plugin add neovim
asdf install neovim stable
asdf set neovim stable --home
asdf reshim neovim

</details>

</details>