Neovim in VS Code

Your real Neovim — your init.lua, your mappings, your plugins — as the editing engine inside VS Code.

Features · Getting started · Settings · Commands · Limitations · Changelog

CodeVim runs a real Neovim process and hands it every keystroke. Neovim does the editing — motions, operators, text objects, macros, registers, your mappings and your plugins — while VS Code keeps doing what it is good at: files, language servers, IntelliSense, the UI and saving. The two stay in sync in both directions.

Preview. CodeVim is used daily, but expect rough edges — please report anything odd.

✨ Features

• 🧠 Your config, unchanged. CodeVim sets vim.g.vscode and ships a require('vscode') module compatible with vscode-neovim, so configs written for it load as-is.
• ⌨️ Real Vim editing. Counts, operators, text objects, macros, registers, . repeat and one undo tree — not an emulation.
• 💡 VS Code typing in insert mode. IntelliSense, snippets, auto-closing, multi-cursor and IME keep working, and plain typing still repeats with ..
• 🔀 Pick your language features. codevim.languageFeatures chooses who does LSP and completion: vscode (IntelliSense; Neovim's LSP and completion plugins step aside, and K, gd, grn, ]d run VS Code commands) or neovim (your Neovim LSP and blink.cmp / nvim-cmp).
• 🪟 Plugin UIs in your editor. Telescope, which-key, Lazy, completion menus and hover popups are drawn over the editor in your VS Code theme. Help, Oil, fugitive and quickfix open as VS Code editors.
• 🧭 One navigation model. :e, gf, <C-o>/<C-i> and Telescope picks open VS Code editors; <C-w> splits and moves map to editor groups; VS Code's Go Back / Go Forward walk Neovim's jumplist.
• 📁 Folds, search and cursor done natively. zc/zo/za drive VS Code folds, hlsearch uses VS Code's find colours, and the cursor shape follows the mode.
• 🩺 Health checks. CodeVim: Check Health explains what's wrong when something is — Neovim version, conflicting extensions, settings, mappings your config took over.

🚀 Getting started

1. Install Neovim 0.10 or newer (0.11 recommended) and make sure nvim is on your PATH — or point codevim.neovimPath at it.
2. Disable other Vim extensions (VSCodeVim, VSCode Neovim). Only one extension can own VS Code's typing.
3. Install CodeVim from the Marketplace and reload the window. The status bar shows -- NORMAL -- once Neovim is up.

Something not right? Run CodeVim: Check Health from the Command Palette, or open CodeVim: Show Log.

Using a separate config

Keep VS Code-specific settings apart from your terminal setup with any of:

-- in init.lua
if vim.g.vscode then
  -- running inside VS Code (CodeVim or vscode-neovim)
end

if require('codevim').active() then
  -- running inside CodeVim specifically
end

or give CodeVim its own config directory with codevim.neovimAppName (sets NVIM_APPNAME).

Calling VS Code from Lua

local vscode = require('vscode')
vscode.action('editor.action.formatDocument')
vscode.action('editor.action.rename')
vscode.update_config('editor.tabSize', 2)

⚙️ Settings

All settings live under codevim.*. The ones you are most likely to touch:

📋 Commands

Open the Command Palette and type CodeVim:

🚧 Known limitations

• One Neovim window mirrors the active editor; other visible editors are separate buffers, not Neovim splits.
• With the default insert strategy, . repeats plain single-line typing only.
• Floats are drawn with editor decorations and sized to codevim.uiWidth columns; icons need a Nerd Font in editor.fontFamily.
• Remote, WSL, Dev Containers and notebooks are untested.

The full guide covers every feature, all settings and how CodeVim works inside.

🤝 Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub. To build from source:

npm install
npm run build      # or: npm run watch, then F5 in VS Code
npm test
npm run package    # writes a .vsix

📄 License

MIT © Cameron Airlie