config.nvim

An opinionated but robust Neovim configuration used across most of my project.

Introduction

A customizable personal Neovim config that is:

• Robust
• Modular
• Completely Documented

Project in display is go-relaychat.

Installation

Install Neovim

This project is based off Kickstart.nvim, which as you may know only targets the latest 'stable' and latest 'nightly' of Neovim. If you are experiencing issues, please make sure you have the latest versions.

Install External Dependencies

Basic Requirements:

• Basic utils: git, make, unzip, C Compiler (gcc)
  • Needed to build native plugins (LuaSnip regexp support, telescope-fzf-native)
• ripgrep — for Telescope's live grep (<leader>sg)
• Clipboard tool (xclip/xsel/win32yank or other depending on platform) — for clipboard = 'unnamedplus'
• A Nerd Font: optional, provides various icons
  • if you have it set vim.g.have_nerd_font in init.lua to true

Language Setup:

• If you want to write Typescript, you need npm (ts_ls, eslint, tailwindcss, prettier, mdx_analyzer, …)
• If you want to write Golang, you will need go (gopls, gofumpt, goimports, gofmt)
• If you want to write Python, you will need python (pyright)
• etc.

Optional / Feature-gated:

• ImageMagick (magick CLI) — image/PDF/SVG preview in Markdown via snacks.image. Without it only PNGs are displayed. LaTeX math additionally needs tectonic or pdflatex; Mermaid diagrams need mmdc.
  • Ubuntu: sudo apt install imagemagick
  • Fedora: sudo dnf install ImageMagick
  • Arch: sudo pacman -S imagemagick
  • macOS: brew install imagemagick
• tree-sitter CLI + C compiler — building parsers for nvim-treesitter (:TSUpdate)
  • Ubuntu/Debian (24.04+): sudo apt install tree-sitter-cli
  • Fedora: sudo dnf install tree-sitter-cli
  • Arch: sudo pacman -S tree-sitter
  • macOS: brew install tree-sitter
  • Fallback: npm install -g tree-sitter-cli or cargo install tree-sitter-cli
• Silicon — beautiful code screenshots
  • cargo install silicon

    NOTE > For Arch/Cachy, just install from pacman with sudo pacman -S silicon

  • It contains my personal font and watermark (see lua/plugins/silicon.lua), so don't forget to change them!
• lazygit — visual Git UI (<leader>g)
  • sudo npm install -g lazygit
• tmux — seamless tmux pane / Neovim split navigation
• hexokinase binary — color previews next to hex codes (make hexokinase in the plugin directory)

Installed automatically by Mason — no manual step:

• LSP servers: clangd, gopls, rust_analyzer, pyright, ts_ls, eslint, tailwindcss, html, angularls, vue_ls, svelte, mdx_analyzer, marksman, dockerls, docker_compose_language_service, arduino_language_server, roslyn_ls, lua_ls — plus stylua
• Debug adapters: codelldb (C/C++/Rust/Zig) and delve (Go), via mason-nvim-dap
• Conform / none-ls formatters (gofumpt, goimports, gofmt, clang-format, prettier, markdownlint-cli2, markdown-toc) are not managed by Mason — they must be on your PATH

Pinned / Patched Plugins

Some plugins are pinned to an exact commit so that a local fix is not reverted by :Lazy update — or by :Lazy install, which runs a git checkout and would otherwise discard the patch. Adding pin = true makes lazy.nvim skip its git.checkout step for that plugin, so the working-tree patch survives.

Plugin	Pinned revision	Reason	Unpin
nvim-silicon	7f66bda8f60c97a5bf4b37e5b8acb0e829ae3c32 (main, 2025-01-09)	Local fix for a deprecated vim.validate call (the table form is removed in Neovim 1.0). Without the pin, :Lazy update checks the fix away.	See below.

The pin lives in lua/plugins/silicon.lua:

commit = '7f66bda8f60c97a5bf4b37e5b8acb0e829ae3c32',
pin = true,

Unpinning a plugin

Do this once upstream ships the fix (or the deprecation warning is no longer needed):

1. Remove the commit and pin lines from lua/plugins/silicon.lua.
2. Discard the local patch so the next checkout is clean:

   git -C ~/.local/share/nvim/lazy/nvim-silicon checkout .

3. Update the plugin:

   :Lazy update nvim-silicon
   

The local patch

Applied in ~/.local/share/nvim/lazy/nvim-silicon/lua/nvim-silicon/init.lua (working-tree only — reapply if the plugin is ever re-cloned):

-	vim.validate({
-		opts = { opts, "table" }
-	})
+	vim.validate("opts", opts, "table")

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

Install config.nvim

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\

*Extra Step

If you're planning to build your own Neovim config, either Fork this repo or the repo this project based off, which is Kickstart.nvim 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>/config.nvim.git

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

Clone config.nvim

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

Linux and Mac

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

Windows

If you're using cmd.exe:

git clone https://github.com/billyaddlers/config.nvim "%localappdata%\nvim"

If you're using powershell.exe

git clone https://github.com/billyaddlers/config.nvim "${env:LOCALAPPDATA}\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.

Also, feel free to check half-heartedly documented Cheatsheet here.

Install Recipes

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

After installing all the dependencies continue with the Install config.nvim step.

Windows Installation

Windows with Microsoft C++ Build Tools and CMake

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 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-linux64.tar.gz
sudo rm -rf /opt/nvim-linux64
sudo mkdir -p /opt/nvim-linux64
sudo chmod a+rX /opt/nvim-linux64
sudo tar -C /opt -xzf nvim-linux64.tar.gz

# make it available in /usr/local/bin, distro installs to /usr/bin
sudo ln -sf /opt/nvim-linux64/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