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 If your chosen install method only gives you an outdated version of neovim, find alternative installation methods below.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:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Linux Install

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

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/

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

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

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.

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

mise plugins install neovim
mise use neovim@stable

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