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

#!/bin/bash
set -ex
sudo apt install -y git build-essential unzip wget curl ripgrep xsel wl-clipboard clang-format

cd ~
rm -f nvim-linux64.tar.gz
wget https://github.com/neovim/neovim/releases/download/nightly/nvim-linux64.tar.gz

cd /opt
sudo rm -rf nvim-linux64
sudo tar -xzvf ~/nvim-linux64.tar.gz
rm -f ~/nvim-linux64.tar.gz

if ! grep -q /opt/nvim-linux64/bin ~/.bashrc
then
  echo '[[ $PATH == *"/opt/nvim-linux64/bin"* ]] || export PATH=$PATH:/opt/nvim-linux64/bin' >> ~/.bashrc
fi

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

Post Installation

Start Neovim

nvim

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

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.

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:

    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