Vimpeccable

Write your .vimrc in Lua!

Vimpeccable is a plugin for Neovim that allows you to easily replace your vimscript-based .vimrc / init.vim with a lua-based one instead. Vimpeccable adds to the existing Neovim lua API by adding new lua commands to easily map keys directly to lua.

NOTE: We recommend using the latest development preview release of Neovim. While the plugin itself is compatible with the current Neovim stable release, the example vimrcs shown in this documentation are not.

Table of Contents

• Quick Start Example
• Installation and Usage (lua)
• Installation and Usage (moonscript)
• Vimpeccable Command Syntax
• Runtime Reloading of Entire Vimrc Plugin
• Repeatable Maps
• Duplicate Map Detection
• Chord Cancellation Maps
• Buffer Local Maps
• User Command Maps

Quick Start Example

Given the following .vimrc:

set ignorecase
set smartcase
set incsearch

set history=5000

set tabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4

let mapleader = "\<space>"

nnoremap <leader>hw :echo 'hello world'<cr>

" Toggle line numbers
nnoremap <leader>n :setlocal number!<cr>

" Keep the cursor in place while joining lines
nnoremap J mzJ`z

nnoremap <leader>ev :vsplit ~/.config/nvim/init.vim<cr>

colorscheme gruvbox

When using Vimpeccable, you could instead write it in lua or any lua-based language as well. For example, you could write it in lua:

vim.o.ignorecase = true
vim.o.smartcase = true
vim.o.incsearch = true

vim.o.history = 5000

vim.o.tabstop = 4
vim.o.shiftwidth = vim.o.tabstop
vim.g.mapleader = " "

vim.cmd('colorscheme gruvbox')

-- Note that we are using 'vimp' (not 'vim') below to add the maps
-- vimp is shorthand for vimpeccable

vimp.nnoremap('<leader>hw', function()
  print('hello')
  print('world')
end)

-- Toggle line numbers
-- Note here that we are directly mapping a lua function 
-- to the <leader>n keys
vimp.nnoremap('<leader>n', function()
  vim.wo.number = not vim.wo.number
end)

-- Keep the cursor in place while joining lines
vimp.nnoremap('J', 'mzJ`z')

vimp.nnoremap('<leader>ev', [[:vsplit ~/.config/nvim/init.vim<cr>]])
-- Or alternatively:
-- vimp.nnoremap('<leader>ev', function()
--   vim.cmd('vsplit ~/.config/nvim/init.vim')
-- end)

vim.cmd('colorscheme gruvbox')

Or you could write it in MoonScript:

vim.o.ignorecase = true
vim.o.smartcase = true
vim.o.incsearch = true

vim.o.history = 5000

vim.o.tabstop = 4
vim.o.shiftwidth = vim.o.tabstop

vim.g.mapleader = " "

vim.cmd('colorscheme gruvbox')

-- Note that we are using 'vimp' (not 'vim') below to add the maps
-- vimp is shorthand for vimpeccable

-- Toggle line numbers
-- Note here that we are directly mapping a moonscript function
-- to the <leader>n keys
vimp.nnoremap '<leader>n', -> vim.wo.number = not vim.wo.number

-- Keep the cursor in place while joining lines
vimp.nnoremap 'J', 'mzJ`z'

vimp.nnoremap '<leader>hw', ->
  -- Note that we can easily create multi-line functions here
  print('hello')
  print('world')

-- Edit the primary vimrc
vimp.nnoremap '<leader>ev', -> vim.cmd('vsplit ~/.config/nvim/init.vim')
-- This would work too:
-- vimp.nnoremap '<leader>ev', [[:vsplit ~/.config/nvim/init.vim<cr>]]
-- Or this:
-- vimp.nnoremap '<leader>ev', ':vsplit ~/.config/nvim/init.vim<cr>'

You can also use any other lua-based language such as fennel, Teal, etc. in similar fashion.

Installation and Usage (lua)

To use the example lua vimrc displayed above, you can start by changing your neovim init.vim file to the following:

call plug#begin()
Plug 'svermeulen/vimpeccable'
Plug 'svermeulen/vimpeccable-lua-vimrc-example'
Plug 'morhetz/gruvbox'
call plug#end()

For the purposes of this example we will use vim-plug but you are of course free to use whichever plugin manager you prefer.

Then you can open Neovim and execute :PlugInstall, and then you should be able to execute all the maps from the example (eg. <space>hw to print 'hello world')

What we've done here is that we've packaged up our vimrc into a plugin named vimpeccable-lua-vimrc-example. To see how that works, open up the ~/.config/nvim/plugged/vimpeccable-lua-vimrc-example directory. You should see two files: /lua/vimrc.lua and /plugin/vimrc.vim. If you open up vimrc.vim you'll see that all it does is the load vimrc.lua like this:

lua require('vimrc')

This file is necessary because Neovim does not have support for a lua based entry point yet, however this is coming soon. In the meantime, we need to bootstrap our lua based vimrc with this vimrc.vim file instead.

Note that the reason this works is because vim will automatically source all .vim files found inside the plugin directories of each plugin that we've added via vim-plug above. And when executing lua require('vimrc'), neovim will look for a file named vimrc.lua in all the lua directories in each plugin as well.

To view the vimrc.lua file, press <space>ev. As you can see, this is the same as the quickstart lua config example posted above.

Installation and Usage (moonscript)

You can also implement your vimrc using any language that compiles to lua, such as MoonScript. You can do this by changing your neovim init.vim file to the following:

call plug#begin()
Plug 'svermeulen/nvim-moonmaker'
Plug 'svermeulen/vimpeccable'
Plug 'svermeulen/vimpeccable-moonscript-vimrc-example'
Plug 'morhetz/gruvbox'
call plug#end()

Before opening neovim you will also need to make sure that you have MoonScript installed and moonc is available on the command line. Then you can open up neovim, execute :PlugInstall, and then you should be able to execute all the same maps from the example (eg. <space>hw to print 'hello world')

Note that in this case we added an extra plugin above named nvim-moonmaker. This plugin does the work of lazily compiling our moonscript files to lua, which is necessary because neovim does not support moonscript out of the box. See the nvim-moonmaker page for more details.

To view the vimrc.moon file, press <space>ev, which you will see is the same as the quickstart moonscript config example posted above.

Vimpeccable Command Syntax

Vimpeccable mirrors the standard vim API and so has all the variations of nnoremap, nmap, xnnoremap, etc. that you probably are already familiar with.

The standard format to add a mapping in vimscript is:

[MODE](nore?)map [OPTIONS] [LHS] [RHS]

Where:

• MODE can be one of x, v, s, o, i, c, t
• nore is optional and determines whether the command is 'recursive' or not. Recursive here would, for example, allow executing other user-defined maps triggered from a user defined map.
• OPTIONS can be one or more options such as <expr>, <buffer>, <nowait> etc.

Examples:

nnoremap <leader>hw :echo 'hello world'<cr>

" Note that we need to use recursive here we are mapping to a non-default RHS
nmap <leader>c <plug>Commentary
xmap <leader>c <plug>Commentary

nnoremap <expr> <silent> <leader>t :call g:DoCustomThing()<cr>

Vimpeccable mirrors the above except that it is a lua method call and therefore requires that each parameter is seperated by commas:

vimp.[MODE](nore?)map [OPTIONS?], [LHS], [RHS]

Examples:

-- Note that in lua we can represent strings either with quotes or with double square brackets
vimp.nnoremap('<leader>hw', [[:echo 'hello world'<cr>]])

vimp.nmap('<leader>c', '<plug>Commentary')
vimp.xmap('<leader>c', '<plug>Commentary')

-- Also note that we need to pass the options as a list instead of as seperate parameters
-- Also note that unlike vimscript, the options are not surrounded with angle brackets
vimp.nnoremap({'expr', 'silent'}, '<leader>1', [[:call g:DoCustomThing()<cr>]])

-- Or, alternatively, implement DoCustomThing in lua instead:
vimp.nnoremap({'expr', 'silent'}, '<leader>1', function()
    -- Add logic here
end)

Vimpeccable also comes with extra methods named bind and rbind which allow passing the mode as a parameter instead of needing to use different methods:

vimp.bind('n', '<leader>hw', [[:echo 'hello world'<cr>]])

-- plugs need to use rbind
vimp.rbind('nx', '<leader>c', '<plug>Commentary')

Note that the only difference here is that rbind is 'recursive' so allows the use of custom user maps as part of the RHS value.

These methods can be especially useful to allow binding multiple modes at the same time. Note also that you can pass multiple values for LHS like this as well:

vimp.rbind('nx', {'<leader>c', 'gc'}, '<plug>Commentary')

Which in vimscript would require 4 different statements for each variation.

Runtime Reloading of Entire Vimrc Plugin

For many vimmers, It is common to regularly be making tweaks to your vimrc.

In order to make edits at runtime without requiring a full restart of vim, often what people do is open up their vimrc and then simply execute :so % to re-source it. The lua equivalent of this would be :luafile %, however, if we were to attempt this when using vimpeccable we would get errors complaining about duplicate maps. This is a feature, not a bug, and is helpful to avoid accidentally clobbering existing maps. But how would we reload our vimpeccable config at runtime then?

To show how this is done, let's use the following config in our neovim init.vim:

call plug#begin()
Plug 'svermeulen/vimpeccable'
Plug 'svermeulen/vimpeccable-lua-vimrc-advanced-example'
Plug 'morhetz/gruvbox'
call plug#end()

Here, we're using the vimpeccable-lua-vimrc-advanced-example plugin, which contains a map to reload our vimrc. After replacing your init.vim with the above, if you then open nvim, run :PlugInstall and then press <space>ev you should see the following vimrc file:

util = require('vimrc.util')

-- ... 
-- <snip>
-- ...

-- r = reload vimrc plugin
vimp.nnoremap('<leader>r', function()
  -- Remove all previously added vimpeccable maps
  vimp.unmap_all()
  -- Unload the lua namespace so that the next time require('vimrc') or require('vimrc.X') is called
  -- it will reload the file
  -- By default, require() will only load the lua file the first time it is called and thereafter
  -- pull it from a cache
  util.unload_lua_namespace('vimrc')
  -- Make sure all open buffers are saved
  vim.cmd('silent wa')
  -- Execute our vimrc lua file again to add back our maps
  require('vimrc')

  print("Reloaded vimrc!")
end)

To test our new <leader>r reload mapping, try changing the <leader>hw mapping to print something different, then press <space>r and then <space>hw to see the new text.

You might also notice that we have a new file inside our ~/.config/nvim/plugged/vimpeccable-lua-vimrc-advanced-example directory at /lua/vimrc/util.lua that we are referencing above with the line util = require('vimrc.util'). As your vimrc grows in complexity, you may want to split it up into multiple files, which we can do quite easily in lua by using the require method.

Note that util.lua will also be reloaded every time we execute <space>r, as well as any other lua file underneath the vimrc folder. See the comments above inside the <leader>r mapping for an explanation of what each line does.

Note that an equivalent example for moonscript can also be found by using the following init.vim instead:

call plug#begin()
Plug 'svermeulen/nvim-moonmaker'
Plug 'svermeulen/vimpeccable'
Plug 'svermeulen/vimpeccable-moonscript-vimrc-advanced-example'
Plug 'morhetz/gruvbox'
call plug#end()

Repeatable Maps

Vimpeccable can also optionally make custom maps repeatable with the . key. For example, given the following maps:

vimp.bind('[e', ':move--<cr>')
vimp.bind(']e', ':move+<cr>')

You might want to be able to hit ]e.. to move the current line three lines down. By default this would not work. You can fix this by making it repeatable by just passing in the repeatable option like this:

vimp.bind({'repeatable'}, '[e', ':move--<cr>')
vimp.bind({'repeatable'}, ']e', ':move+<cr>')

Note that this feature requires that vim-repeat is installed.

Duplicate Map Detection

By default, vimpeccable will reject any maps that are already taken. To see what that looks like, try adding the following map to the same vimrc.lua (assuming you're using the vimpeccable-lua-vimrc-advanced-example config from above):

vimp.bind('<leader>hw', function() print('hi!') end)

If you then execute <space>r, you should see the following error or similar:

This is because we have already defined a map for <leader>hw above this line. Note that this error will not stop the rest of our config from loading. By default, Vimpeccable will simply log the error and continue, to ensure as much as your config can be loaded as possible.

In some cases you might want to override the previous mapping anyway, which you can do by passing in the override option like this:

vimp.bind({'override'}, '<leader>hw', function() print('hi!') end)

If you then reload with <space>r, and press <space>hw, you should now see the new output.

Vimpeccable will also automatically detect maps that 'shadow' each other as well. For example, if we change our map to this instead:

vimp.bind('<leader>h', function() print('hi!') end)

And then attempt to reload again with <space>r, we will get a similar error:

This is different from vim's default behaviour. If we added these maps using vimscript like this instead:

nnoremap <leader>hw :echo 'hello world'<cr>
nnoremap <leader>h :echo 'hi!'<cr>

Then every time we execute <leader>h, there would be a delay before we see the 'hi!' text printed, because vim needs to wait to see if you're in the process of executing <leader>hw instead.

Chord Cancellation Maps

If you find yourself using a lot of leader maps, you might notice that it is not possible to cancel a leader operation without sometimes causing unintended side effects. For example, given the following map:

vimp.bind('<leader>ddb', function() print("Executed map!") end)

If you then type <space>dd and then hit any key other than b, you will find that the current line is deleted. This is because vim will do its best to try and match what you've already typed to another existing map, and in this case it chooses dd to delete the current line. A similar problem occurs if we type <space>d and then hit any other key other than d, except in this case vim decides to just move the cursor one character to the right.

You can avoid these problems by adding the following to the bottom of your vimrc.lua:

vimp.add_chord_cancellations('n', '<leader>')

Now if we reload with <space>r, then hit <space>dd<esc>, then the line will no longer be deleted. And similarly, if we hit <space>d<esc>, nothing will happen anymore.

Under the hood, what vimpeccable is actually doing here is adding maps for <space>dd<esc> and <space>d<esc> and explicitly mapping them to do nothing.

Buffer Local Maps

Vimpeccable also supports buffer local maps. Given this vimscript map:

nnoremap <buffer> <leader>t1 :echo 'buffer local map!'<cr>

As you might expect, the equivalent in lua would be:

vimp.nnoremap({'buffer'}, '<leader>t1', [[:echo 'buffer local map!'<cr>]])
vimp.nnoremap({'buffer'}, '<leader>t2', [[:echo 'another buffer local map!'<cr>]])

Or alternatively:

vimp.add_buffer_maps(function()
  vimp.nnoremap('<leader>t1', function() print('lua map!') end)
  vimp.nnoremap('<leader>t2', function() print('lua map two!') end)
end)

You can also specify the exact buffer if you know the buffer id like this:

vimp.add_buffer_maps(bufferId, function()
  vimp.nnoremap('<leader>t1', function() print('lua map!') end)
  vimp.nnoremap('<leader>t2', function() print('lua map two!') end)
end)

For a full example, install vimpeccable-lua-vimrc-advanced-example as explained in the previous section, and then look at the files /ftplugin/lua.vim and /lua/vimrc/ft/lua.lua.

Or, alternatively, in MoonScript instead of lua:

vimp.add_buffer_maps ->
  vimp.nnoremap '<leader>t1', -> print('lua map!')
  vimp.nnoremap '<leader>t2', -> print('lua map two!')

User Command Maps

In some cases it might be better to define a custom action as a vim command rather than mapping it to a key. This way we don't use up any open key maps and our custom commands are discoverable on the command line by pressing tab (which can be easier than having to remember whatever leader map we chose). For example, you might want to define the following user commands in vimscript:

function! g:OpenFileOnGithub()
    echom "Open the URL on github for current file on current line"
endfunction

function! g:RenameFile(newName)
    echom "Todo - rename current file to " . a:newName
endfunction

command! -nargs=0 SvOpenFileOnGithub call g:OpenFileOnGithub()
command! -nargs=* SvRename call g:RenameFile(<f-args>)

Note here that I'm using Sv as a prefix on my commands so that I can just type Sv<tab> on the command line to see the full list.

To do this in lua with vimpeccable instead, you could do this:

vimp.map_command('SvOpenFileOnGithub', function()
  print("Todo - Open the URL on github for current file on current line")
end)

vimp.map_command('SvRename', function(newName)
  print("Todo - rename current file to " .. newName)
end)

Or, if using MoonScript:

vimp.map_command 'SvOpenFileOnGithub', ->
  print("Todo - Open the URL on github for current file on current line")

vimp.map_command 'SvRename', (newName) ->
  print("Todo - rename current file to " .. newName)

Note that vimpeccable will automatically fill in the nargs value for the command based on the given function signature.