---
title: User's Guide for Vim in Nixpkgs
author: Marc Weber
date: 2016-06-25
---
# User's Guide to Vim Plugins/Addons/Bundles/Scripts in Nixpkgs
Both Neovim and Vim can be configured to include your favorite plugins
and additional libraries.
Loading can be deferred; see examples.
At the moment we support three different methods for managing plugins:
- Vim packages (*recommend*)
- VAM (=vim-addon-manager)
- Pathogen
- vim-plug
## Custom configuration
Adding custom .vimrc lines can be done using the following code:
```
vim_configurable.customize {
# `name` specifies the name of the executable and package
name = "vim-with-plugins";
vimrcConfig.customRC = ''
set hidden
'';
}
```
This configuration is used when vim is invoked with the command specified as name, in this case `vim-with-plugins`.
For Neovim the `configure` argument can be overridden to achieve the same:
```
neovim.override {
configure = {
customRC = ''
# here your custom configuration goes!
'';
};
}
```
If you want to use `neovim-qt` as a graphical editor, you can configure it by overriding neovim in an overlay
or passing it an overridden neovimn:
```
neovim-qt.override {
neovim = neovim.override {
configure = {
customRC = ''
# your custom configuration
'';
};
};
}
```
## Managing plugins with Vim packages
To store you plugins in Vim packages (the native vim plugin manager, see `:help packages`) the following example can be used:
```
vim_configurable.customize {
vimrcConfig.packages.myVimPackage = with pkgs.vimPlugins; {
# loaded on launch
start = [ youcompleteme fugitive ];
# manually loadable by calling `:packadd $plugin-name`
# however, if a vim plugin has a dependency that is not explicitly listed in
# opt that dependency will always be added to start to avoid confusion.
opt = [ phpCompletion elm-vim ];
# To automatically load a plugin when opening a filetype, add vimrc lines like:
# autocmd FileType php :packadd phpCompletion
};
}
```
`myVimPackage` is an arbitrary name for the generated package. You can choose any name you like.
For Neovim the syntax is:
```
neovim.override {
configure = {
customRC = ''
# here your custom configuration goes!
'';
packages.myVimPackage = with pkgs.vimPlugins; {
# see examples below how to use custom packages
start = [ ];
# If a vim plugin has a dependency that is not explicitly listed in
# opt that dependency will always be added to start to avoid confusion.
opt = [ ];
};
};
}
```
The resulting package can be added to `packageOverrides` in `~/.nixpkgs/config.nix` to make it installable:
```
{
packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
myVim = vim_configurable.customize {
# `name` specifies the name of the executable and package
name = "vim-with-plugins";
# add here code from the example section
};
myNeovim = neovim.override {
configure = {
# add here code from the example section
};
};
};
}
```
After that you can install your special grafted `myVim` or `myNeovim` packages.
## Managing plugins with vim-plug
To use [vim-plug](https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug) to manage your Vim
plugins the following example can be used:
```
vim_configurable.customize {
vimrcConfig.packages.myVimPackage = with pkgs.vimPlugins; {
# loaded on launch
plug.plugins = [ youcompleteme fugitive phpCompletion elm-vim ];
};
}
```
For Neovim the syntax is:
```
neovim.override {
configure = {
customRC = ''
# here your custom configuration goes!
'';
plug.plugins = with pkgs.vimPlugins; [
vim-go
];
};
}
```
## Managing plugins with VAM
### Handling dependencies of Vim plugins
VAM introduced .json files supporting dependencies without versioning
assuming that "using latest version" is ok most of the time.
### Example
First create a vim-scripts file having one plugin name per line. Example:
"tlib"
{'name': 'vim-addon-sql'}
{'filetype_regex': '\%(vim)$', 'names': ['reload', 'vim-dev-plugin']}
Such vim-scripts file can be read by VAM as well like this:
call vam#Scripts(expand('~/.vim-scripts'), {})
Create a default.nix file:
{ nixpkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {}, compiler ? "ghc7102" }:
nixpkgs.vim_configurable.customize { name = "vim"; vimrcConfig.vam.pluginDictionaries = [ "vim-addon-vim2nix" ]; }
Create a generate.vim file:
ActivateAddons vim-addon-vim2nix
let vim_scripts = "vim-scripts"
call nix#ExportPluginsForNix({
\ 'path_to_nixpkgs': eval('{"'.substitute(substitute(substitute($NIX_PATH, ':', ',', 'g'), '=',':', 'g'), '\([:,]\)', '"\1"',"g").'"}')["nixpkgs"],
\ 'cache_file': '/tmp/vim2nix-cache',
\ 'try_catch': 0,
\ 'plugin_dictionaries': ["vim-addon-manager"]+map(readfile(vim_scripts), 'eval(v:val)')
\ })
Then run
nix-shell -p vimUtils.vim_with_vim2nix --command "vim -c 'source generate.vim'"
You should get a Vim buffer with the nix derivations (output1) and vam.pluginDictionaries (output2).
You can add your vim to your system's configuration file like this and start it by "vim-my":
my-vim =
let plugins = let inherit (vimUtils) buildVimPluginFrom2Nix; in {
copy paste output1 here
}; in vim_configurable.customize {
name = "vim-my";
vimrcConfig.vam.knownPlugins = plugins; # optional
vimrcConfig.vam.pluginDictionaries = [
copy paste output2 here
];
# Pathogen would be
# vimrcConfig.pathogen.knownPlugins = plugins; # plugins
# vimrcConfig.pathogen.pluginNames = ["tlib"];
};
Sample output1:
"reload" = buildVimPluginFrom2Nix { # created by nix#NixDerivation
name = "reload";
src = fetchgit {
url = "git://github.com/xolox/vim-reload";
rev = "0a601a668727f5b675cb1ddc19f6861f3f7ab9e1";
sha256 = "0vb832l9yxj919f5hfg6qj6bn9ni57gnjd3bj7zpq7d4iv2s4wdh";
};
dependencies = ["nim-misc"];
};
[...]
Sample output2:
[
''vim-addon-manager''
''tlib''
{ "name" = ''vim-addon-sql''; }
{ "filetype_regex" = ''\%(vim)$$''; "names" = [ ''reload'' ''vim-dev-plugin'' ]; }
]
## Adding new plugins to nixpkgs
Nix expressions for Vim plugins are stored in [pkgs/misc/vim-plugins](/pkgs/misc/vim-plugins). For the vast majority of plugins, Nix expressions are automatically generated by running [`./update.py`](/pkgs/misc/vim-plugins/update.py). This creates a [generated.nix](/pkgs/misc/vim-plugins/generated.nix) file based on the plugins listed in [vim-plugin-names](/pkgs/misc/vim-plugins/vim-plugin-names). Plugins are listed in alphabetical order in `vim-plugin-names` using the format `[github username]/[repository]`. For example https://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree becomes `scrooloose/nerdtree`.
Some plugins require overrides in order to function properly. Overrides are placed in [overrides.nix](/pkgs/misc/vim-plugins/overrides.nix). Overrides are most often required when a plugin requires some dependencies, or extra steps are required during the build process. For example `deoplete-fish` requires both `deoplete-nvim` and `vim-fish`, and so the following override was added:
```nix
deoplete-fish = super.deoplete-fish.overrideAttrs(old: {
dependencies = with super; [ deoplete-nvim vim-fish ];
});
```
Sometimes plugins require an override that must be changed when the plugin is updated. This can cause issues when Vim plugins are auto-updated but the associated override isn't updated. For these plugins, the override should be written so that it specifies all information required to install the plugin, and running `./update.py` doesn't change the derivation for the plugin. Manually updating the override is required to update these types of plugins. An example of such a plugin is `LanguageClient-neovim`.
To add a new plugin:
1. run `./update.py` and create a commit named "vimPlugins: Update",
2. add the new plugin to [vim-plugin-names](/pkgs/misc/vim-plugins/vim-plugin-names) and add overrides if required to [overrides.nix](/pkgs/misc/vim-plugins/overrides.nix),
3. run `./update.py` again and create a commit named "vimPlugins.[name]: init at [version]" (where `name` and `version` can be found in [generated.nix](/pkgs/misc/vim-plugins/generated.nix)), and
4. create a pull request.
## Important repositories
- [vim-pi](https://bitbucket.org/vimcommunity/vim-pi) is a plugin repository
from VAM plugin manager meant to be used by others as well used by
- [vim2nix](https://github.com/MarcWeber/vim-addon-vim2nix) which generates the
.nix code