neovim-config/README.md

🌙 Rootiest Neovim

A modern, modular, and high-performance Neovim configuration built from scratch with a focus on simplicity, speed, and standard Neovim primitives.

✨ Highlights

• Built-in Package Management: Exclusively uses vim.pack for lightweight, native plugin management.
• Phased Loading: Async, non-blocking startup using a phased VimEnter queue for a snappy experience.
• Unified Registry: Configuration is managed via a global _G.Config registry, ensuring cross-plugin consistency.
• High Performance: Featuring blink.cmp (Rust-based completion) and optimized Snacks.nvim components.
• AI-Powered: Native integration with the GitHub Copilot Language Server.
• User-Centric QoL: Hybrid line numbers, autosave-on-edit, and seamless system clipboard integration.
• Resilient & Portable: Intelligent terminal title management (Kitty + Fallback), automatic project root detection, and machine-local override support.
• Lean & Readable: ~850 lines of Lua code (excluding comments and blanks).

📁 Architecture

The configuration is strictly modular:

• init.lua: Entry point, bootstrap, global state initialization, and machine-local overrides.
• lua/bootstrap.lua: Early runtime setup — redirects Neovim's data/state paths when running as root (e.g. via a symlinked ~/.config/nvim), preventing root sessions from polluting or conflicting with the user-level install.
• lua/lazyload.lua: Logic for async and phased plugin loading.
• lua/options.lua: Global Vim settings, auto-reload, root management, and terminal title logic.
• lua/plugins.lua: Plugin declarations and detailed registry-based configurations.
• lua/keymaps.lua: Centralized user-facing keybindings.
• lua/const.lua: Stores constant values (like dashboard headers) for the configuration.

🔌 Plugin Stack

Core UI

• Catppuccin: Primary colorscheme (Mocha flavour).
• Lualine: Statusline with Git diff and line-by-line Gitsigns blame.
• Noice: Modern UI for cmdline (popup), messages, and LSP hover.
• Snacks: High-performance dashboard, explorer, and pickers.
• Nvim-web-devicons: Consistent icons across UI components.

Editing & Navigation

• Flash: Enhanced motion and search.
• Focusline: Keeps the active line at a configurable screen position (30%) during scrolling motions.
• Mini.ai: Better text objects (including g for entire buffer).
• Mini.surround: Surround text objects (add/delete/change).
• Mini.pairs: Auto-close brackets and quotes.
• Persistence: Session management.
• Which-key: Interactive keybinding documentation.
• Gitsigns: In-buffer git indicators and line highlights.
• Grug-far: Project-wide search and replace.
• Gx.nvim: Smart URL/reference opener under cursor.
• Comment-box: Decorative comment boxes and lines.
• Undotree: Visual undo history browser.
• Zen Mode: Distraction-free editing.
• Qalc: Inline calculator via qalculate.

LSP & Completion

• Blink.cmp + blink.lib: High-performance Rust-based completion. Auto-detects binary across install layouts; falls back gracefully if unavailable. Rebuilds automatically on PackChanged.
• LSPConfig + Mason: Managed LSP support for Lua, C/C++, Rust, Python, Fish, and Shell.
• Copilot: GitHub Copilot language server integration.
• Conform: Formatter with format-on-save and range formatting.
• Inc-rename: Incremental LSP rename with live preview.
• Lazydev: Neovim Lua type definitions for lua_ls.

Terminal

• Kitty Scrollback: Browse Kitty terminal scrollback buffer inside Neovim.

🛠️ System Dependencies

To ensure all features (pickers, formatters, and LSPs) work correctly, the following packages are required:

Essential Tools

• git, curl, unzip, build-essential (or base-devel)
• ripgrep (Grep support)
• fd (Fast file finding)
• fzf (Fuzzy finder fallback)
• lazygit (Git TUI)
• gh (GitHub CLI integration)
• xclip / xsel (X11) or wl-copy (Wayland) for clipboard sync.

Runtime Environments

• Node.js & npm (Copilot and various LSPs)
• Python3 & pip (Python LSPs)
• Cargo (Rust toolchain, required for building blink.cmp)
• qalculate (optional, required for the Qalc calculator plugin)

Installation Commands

Debian / Ubuntu:

sudo apt install git ripgrep fd-find fzf lazygit gh xclip nodejs npm build-essential curl unzip

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S git ripgrep fd fzf lazygit github-cli xclip nodejs npm base-devel curl unzip

🚀 Getting Started

Installation

git clone https://github.com/your-username/nvim-config ~/.config/nvim
nvim

Post-Install

1. Build Blink: Completion auto-rebuilds on PackChanged. If it still isn't working, run cargo build --release inside ~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/core/opt/blink.cmp.
2. LSP Servers: Run :Mason to monitor the installation of Language Servers.
3. Copilot: Run :LspCopilotSignIn to authenticate.

Machine-Local Overrides

Place machine-specific or secret configuration in ~/.config/.user-dots/nvim/local.lua or ~/.config/.user-dots/nvim/secrets.lua. These files are sourced automatically at startup if present, and are intentionally outside the repo to avoid accidental commits.

⌨️ Key Features & Mappings

Key	Description
<leader><space>	Smart Find Files (Snacks)
<leader>e	File Explorer (Snacks)
<leader>sr	Search and Replace (Grug-far)
<leader>gg	Open Lazygit
<leader>qs	Restore Last Session (Persistence)
<leader>cf	Format Buffer (Conform)
<leader>uu	Toggle Undo Tree
<leader>z	Toggle Zen Mode
gd / gr	Goto Definition / References
K	Hover Documentation
s / S	Leap Motion (Normal/Window)
ys / ds / cs	Surround (Add/Delete/Change)
gx / gX	Open URL under cursor (Gx.nvim)
<leader>cbb	Create Centered Comment Box
<leader>cbl	Create Centered Comment Line
<leader>cbd	Delete Comment Box/Line
<leader>cbk	Browse Box Style Catalog
:Q	Forced Write-All and Quit

📜 License

Distributed under the GPLv3 or later License. See LICENSE for more information.