Neovim IDE Crash Course

This article is a companion and explanation for this repository: repo

Important Directories

nvim: ~/.config/nvim:

This is where your config lives

share: ~/.local/share

You will find plugins here under: ~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/packer You will also find other useful plugin data

cache: ~/.cache

You can find logs here

state: ~/.local/state

You can find state about Neovim as well as other plugins here

Concepts and Terminology

LSP

LSP stands for Language Server Protocol.

It provides:

Completions
Diagnostics
(GOTO Definition, Find References etc..)
Code actions
Autoimport
Sometimes formatters

For a full explanation: Docs

Formatters

Formatters help keep a consistent style across your codebase

Examples include: prettier, black, stylua

Linters

Linters add extra diagnostics in addition to your language server, often they will provide stylistic suggestions

Examples include: eslint, flake8, shellcheck

Treesitter

Treesitter at basic level provides syntax highlighting and indentation

But also provides much more: docs

Config Structure

The config structure is relatively simple

init.lua: the entry point for your config
lua/: the directory where all of your lua code and plugin config goes
lua/user: a namespace to avoid collisions with other plugins and lua modules
lua/user/lsp: lsp is complicated enough to warrant it’s own separate directory
lua/user/lsp/settings: specific settings for your Language Server, to find more settings for your language server read more here

.nvim/
├── init.lua
├── lua
│   └── user
│       ├── alpha.lua
│       ├── autocommands.lua
│       ├── autopairs.lua
│       ├── bufferline.lua
│       ├── cmp.lua
│       ├── colorscheme.lua
│       ├── comment.lua
│       ├── dap.lua
│       ├── gitsigns.lua
│       ├── illuminate.lua
│       ├── impatient.lua
│       ├── indentline.lua
│       ├── keymaps.lua
│       ├── lsp
│       │   ├── handlers.lua
│       │   ├── init.lua
│       │   ├── lsp-installer.lua
│       │   ├── null-ls.lua
│       │   └── settings
│       │       ├── pyright.lua
│       │       └── sumneko_lua.lua
│       ├── lualine.lua
│       ├── nvim-tree.lua
│       ├── options.lua
│       ├── plugins.lua
│       ├── project.lua
│       ├── telescope.lua
│       ├── toggleterm.lua
│       └── treesitter.lua
└── README.md

Making Changes

Options: you can add/change options here
Keymaps: you can add/change keymaps here
Adding a Language Server:

First Enter:

:LspInstallInfo

and press i on the Language Server you wish to install

Next you will need to add the server to this list: servers

Adding Formatters and linters

Make sure the formatter or linter is installed and add it to this setup function: null-ls

NOTE Some are already setup as examples, remove them if you want

Adding Plugins

You can add your plugins here

Notice that all of the included plugins are pinned to a particular commit. This is to maintain stability, feel free to unpin or pin to a newer version if you want.

Stability

I have noticed many Neovim users complain about the stability of Neovim and it’s plugin ecosystem. If you regularly update your plugins and keep up with the latest Neovim version then you have probably deal with breaking changes fairly often.

Instead of updating daily/weekly etc.. I recommend keeping your config stable and updating once every few months, or whenever there is a new feature you’d like to test out. The best way I have found to do this is to:

pin your commits when your config is working without bugs and
Install Neovim from source so that it doesn’t update when you update packages using your package manager.

Neovim Releases

You can find the latest released version of Neovim here

There are instructions in the README explaining how to install the version of Neovim you want here