Neovim Flake

Neovim in nix.

Try it out:

$ nix run github:konradmalik/neovim-flake

Run checks (stylua, luacheck, typecheck via lua-language-server):

$ make check-fmt
$ make check-lint

Run tests (busted using nvim as an interpreter):

$ make test

Assumptions

• keeps all Neovim config in lua as it's supposed to be
• uses nix for system dependencies, plugins, and packaging

That way nix is a layer on top, just used for packaging and reproducibility. It does not interfere with the standard way to configure Neovim.

Language servers, formatters, linters

Those are managed by nix and appended to the end of PATH for Neovim. This allows Neovim to use them, but also to use other versions by prepending them to PATH.

An example - you can have some project which uses an older version of black which formats files a bit differently. Assuming that this project has a devshell defined, you can just enter that devshell and run Neovim. The older black from the devshell will take precedence over the one provided by this flake, because devshell works by prepending to PATH.

Experimentation

One of the cons of using Neovim in nix is - no "dirty" modifications to Neovim to try something out quickly. Experimentation becomes harder. You always need to rebuild it, but nix build and then ./result/bin/nvim is quick and easy enough for it to not be a deal-breaker.

Another solution implemented in this repo is nvim-dev command that becomes available inside devShell here. It runs the neovim package defined in the repo with plugins and extraPackages provided, but the native lua config gets read "live" from ~/.config/nvim-dev which is linked to nvim folder here in the repo. This allows for instant feedback and dynamic development just like when using neovim without nix.

Credits

Inspired by:

• https://primamateria.github.io/blog/neovim-nix/
• https://github.com/nix-community/kickstart-nix.nvim/