
VSCode Neovim
VSCode Neovim Integration
Neovim is a fork of VIM to allow greater extensibility and integration. This extension uses a
fully embedded Neovim instance, no more half-complete VIM emulation! VSCode's native functionality is used for insert
mode and editor commands, making the best use of both editors.
- 🎉 Almost fully feature-complete VIM integration by utilizing Neovim as a backend.
- 🔧 Supports custom
init.vim
and many VIM plugins.
- 🥇 First-class and lag-free insert mode, letting VSCode do what it does best.
- 🤝 Complete integration with VSCode features (lsp/autocompletion/snippets/multi-cursor/etc).
Table of Contents
🧰 Getting Started
Installation
Install the vscode-neovim
extension.
Install Neovim 0.8.0 or greater.
- Set the Neovim path in the extension settings. You must specify full path to Neovim, like
"
C:\Neovim\bin\nvim.exe
" or "/usr/local/bin/nvim
".
- The setting id is "
vscode-neovim.neovimExecutablePaths.win32/linux/darwin
", respective to your system.
If you want to use Neovim from WSL, set the useWSL
configuration toggle and specify Linux path to nvim binary.
wsl.exe
Windows binary and wslpath
Linux binary are required for this. wslpath
must be available through
$PATH
Linux env setting. Use wsl --list
to check for the correct default Linux distribution.
Assign affinity value for performance improvement.
Go to Settings > Features > Extensions > Experimental Affinity.
Add an entry with item name asvetliakov.vscode-neovim
and value 1.
OR
Add to your settings.json
:
"extensions.experimental.affinity": {
"asvetliakov.vscode-neovim": 1
},
Neovim configuration
Since many VIM plugins can cause issues in VSCode, it is recommended to start from an empty init.vim
. For a guide for
which types of plugins are supported, see troubleshooting.
Before creating an issue on Github, make sure you can reproduce the problem with an empty init.vim
and no VSCode
extensions.
To determine if Neovim is running in VSCode, add to your init.vim
:
if exists('g:vscode')
" VSCode extension
else
" ordinary Neovim
endif
Or to your init.lua
:
if vim.g.vscode then
-- VSCode extension
else
-- ordinary Neovim
end
To conditionally activate plugins, vim-plug
has a
few solutions. packer.nvim
and lazy.nvim
have built-in support for cond = vim.g.vscode
. See
plugins in the wiki for tips on configuring VIM plugins.
VSCode configuration
- On a Mac, the h, j, k and l movement keys may not repeat when held, to
fix this open Terminal and execute the following command:
defaults write com.microsoft.VSCode ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false
.
- To fix remapped escape key not working in Linux, set
"keyboard.dispatch": "keyCode"
Adding keybindings
Every special (control/alt) keyboard shortcut must be explicitly defined in VSCode to send to neovim. By default, only
bindings that are included by Neovim by default are sent.
To pass custom bindings to Neovim, for example C-h in normal mode, add to your keybindings.json:
{
"command": "vscode-neovim.send",
// the key sequence to activate the binding
"key": "ctrl+h",
// don't activate during insert mode
"when": "editorTextFocus && neovim.mode != insert",
// the input to send to Neovim
"args": "<C-h>"
}
To disable an existing shortcut, for example C-a, add to your keybindings.json:
{
"command": "-vscode-neovim.send",
"key": "ctrl+a"
}
The VSCode keybindings editor provides a good way to delete keybindings.
💡 Tips and Features
VSCode specific differences
- File and editor management commands such as
:e
/:w
/:q
/:vsplit
/:tabnext
/etc are mapped to corresponding
VSCode commands and behavior may be different (see below). Do not use vVIM commands like :w
in
scripts/keybindings, they won't work. If you're using them in some custom commands/mappings, you might need to
rebind them to call VSCode commands from Neovim with VSCodeCall/VSCodeNotify
(see below).
- When you type some commands they may be substituted for the another, like
:write
will be replaced by :Write
.
- Scrolling is done by VSCode. C-d/C-u/etc are slightly different.
- Editor customization (relative line number, scrolloff, etc) is handled by VSCode.
- Dot-repeat (.) is slightly different - moving the cursor within a change range won't break the repeat.
sequence. In Neovim, if you type
abc<cursor>
in insert mode, then move cursor to a<cursor>bc
and type 1
here
the repeat sequence would be 1
. However in VSCode it would be a1bc
. Another difference is that when you delete
some text in insert mode, dot repeat only works from right-to-left, meaning it will treat Del key as
BS keys when running dot repeat.
Troubleshooting
If you get "Unable to init vscode-neovim: command 'type' already exists" message, uninstall other VSCode extensions that
register the type
command (like VSCodeVim or
Overtype).
Affinity
Make sure you have the extension running in its own thread using affinity (see installation).
Extensions that share the same affinity value are associated with a shared extension host (extension manager from
VSCode). Performance issues arise when a number of extensions have the same host. On going operations of one extension
may slow down the operations of another. However, if an extension is assigned an affinity, its extension host runs in a
separate worker thread. The operations of extension with host in one thread doesn't directly affect the operations of
extension with its host running in another.
Other Extensions
If you have any performance problems (cursor jitter usually) make sure you're not using these kinds of extensions:
- Anything that renders decorators very often:
- Line number extensions (VSCode has built-in support for normal/relative line numbers)
- Indent guide extensions (VSCode has built-in indent guides)
- Brackets highlighter extensions (VSCode has built-in feature)
- VSCode extensions that delay the extension host like "Bracket Pair Colorizer"
- VIM plugins that increase latency and cause performance problems.
- Make sure to disable unneeded plugins, as many of them don't make sense with VSCode and may cause problems.
- You don't need any code, highlighting, completion, LSP plugins as well any plugins that spawn windows/buffers
(nerdtree and similar), fuzzy-finders, etc.
- Many navigation/textobject/editing plugins should be fine.
If you're not sure, disable all other extensions, reload VSCode window, and see if the problem persists before
reporting it.
Composite escape keys
Since VSCode is responsible for insert mode, custom insert-mode VIM mappings don't work. To map composite escape keys,
put into your keybindings.json:
for jj
{
"command": "vscode-neovim.compositeEscape1",
"key": "j",
"when": "neovim.mode == insert && editorTextFocus",
"args": "j"
}
to enable jk add also:
{
"command": "vscode-neovim.compositeEscape2",
"key": "k",
"when": "neovim.mode == insert && editorTextFocus",
"args": "k"
}
Currently, there is no way to map both jk
and kj
, or to map jk
without also mapping jj
.
Jumplist
VSCode's jumplist is used instead of Neovim's. This is to make VSCode native navigation (mouse click, jump to
definition, etc) navigable through the jumplist.
Make sure to bind to workbench.action.navigateBack
/ workbench.action.navigateForward
if you're using custom
mappings. Marks (both upper & lowercased) should work fine.
Command menu has the wildmenu completion on type. The completion options appear after 1.5s (to not bother you when you
write :w
or :noh
). Up/Down selects the option and Tab accepts it. See the gif:

Multiple cursors
Multiple cursors work in:
- Insert mode
- Visual line mode
- Visual block mode
To spawn multiple cursors from visual line/block modes type ma/mA or mi/mI
(by default). The effect differs:
- For visual line mode, mi will start insert mode on each selected line on the first non whitespace
character and ma will on the end of line.
- For visual block mode, mi will start insert on each selected line before the cursor block and
ma after.
- mA/mI versions accounts for empty lines (only for visual line mode, for visual block mode
they're same as ma/mi).
See gif in action:

Invoking VSCode actions from neovim
There are a
few helper functions that
are used to invoke VSCode commands from Neovim. Note that the commands that start with require("vscode-neovim")
are
lua variants.
Command |
Description |
VSCodeNotify(command, ...) VSCodeCall require("vscode-neovim").notify require("vscode-neovim").call
|
Invoke VSCode command with optional arguments. |
VSCodeNotifyRange(command, line1, line2, leaveSelection, ...) VSCodeCallRange require("vscode-neovim").notify_range require("vscode-neovim").call_range
|
Produce linewise VSCode selection from line1 to line2 and invoke VSCode command. Setting leaveSelection to 1 keeps VSCode selection active after invoking the command. Line is 1-based. |
VSCodeNotifyRangePos(command, line1, line2, pos1, pos2, leaveSelection ,...) VSCodeCallRangePos require("vscode-neovim").notify_range_pos require("vscode-neovim").call_range_pos
|
Produce characterwise VSCode selection from line1.pos1 to line2.pos2 and invoke VSCode command. Pos is [1,1]-based. |
💡 Functions with Notify
in their name are non-blocking, the ones with Call
are blocking. Generally use Notify
unless you really need a blocking call. One example of a blocking call is wanting VSCode to process a visual selection
when running a command before exiting visual mode.
Examples
Format selection (default binding):
xnoremap = <Cmd>call VSCodeCall('editor.action.formatSelection')<CR>
nnoremap = <Cmd>call VSCodeCall('editor.action.formatSelection')<CR><Esc>
nnoremap == <Cmd>call VSCodeCall('editor.action.formatSelection')<CR>
Open definition aside (default binding):
nnoremap <C-w>gd <Cmd>call VSCodeNotify('editor.action.revealDefinitionAside')<CR>
Find in files for word under cursor:
nnoremap ? <Cmd>call VSCodeNotify('workbench.action.findInFiles', { 'query': expand('<cword>')})<CR>
More advanced examples can be found here.
⌨️ Bindings
These are the default commands and bindings available for file/scroll/window/tab management.
💡 "With bang" refers to adding a "!" to the end of a command.
VSCode specific bindings
Editor command
Key |
VSCode Command |
= / == |
editor.action.formatSelection |
gh / K |
editor.action.showHover |
gd / C-] |
editor.action.revealDefinition Also works in vim help. |
gf |
editor.action.revealDeclaration |
gH |
editor.action.referenceSearch.trigger |
gO |
workbench.action.gotoSymbol |
C-w gd / C-w gf |
editor.action.revealDefinitionAside |
gD |
editor.action.peekDefinition |
gF |
editor.action.peekDeclaration |
Tab |
togglePeekWidgetFocus Switch between peek editor and reference list. |
C-n / C-p |
Navigate lists, parameter hints, suggestions, quick-open, cmdline history, peek reference list |
💡 To specify the default peek mode, modify editor.peekWidgetDefaultFocus
in your settings.
Explorer/list navigation
Key |
VSCode Command |
j / k |
list.focusDown/Up |
h / l |
list.collapse/select |
Enter |
list.select |
gg |
list.focusFirst |
G |
list.focusLast |
o |
list.toggleExpand |
C-u / C-d |
list.focusPageUp/Down |
z o / z O |
list.expand |
z c |
list.collapse |
z C |
list.collapseAllToFocus |
z a / z A |
list.toggleExpand |
z m / z M |
list.collapseAll |
/ / Escape |
list.toggleKeyboardNavigation |
Explorer file manipulation
Key |
VSCode Command |
r |
renameFile |
d |
deleteFile |
y |
filesExplorer.copy |
x |
filesExplorer.cut |
p |
filesExplorer.paste |
v |
explorer.openToSide |
a |
explorer.newFile |
A |
explorer.newFolder |
File management
Command |
Description |
e[dit] / ex |
Open quickopen. With filename, e.g. :e $MYVIMRC : open the file in new tab. The file must exist. With bang: revert file to last saved version. With filename and bang e.g. :e! $MYVIMRC : close current file (discard any changes) and open the file. The file must exist. |
ene[w] |
Create new untitled document in VSCode. With bang: close current file (discard any changes) and create new document. |
fin[d] |
Open VSCode's quick open window. Arguments and count are not supported. |
w[rite] |
Save current file. With bang: open 'save as' dialog. |
sav[eas] |
Open 'save as' dialog. |
wa[ll] |
Save all files. |
q[uit] / C-w q / C-w c / ZQ |
Close the active editor. With bang: revert changes and close the active editor. |
wq / ZZ |
Save and close the active editor. |
qa[ll] |
Close all editors, but don't quit VSCode. Acts like qall! , so beware of unsaved changes. |
wqa[ll] / xa[ll] |
Save all editors & close. |
Tab management
Command |
Description |
tabe[dit] |
Similar to e[dit] . Open quickopen. With argument: open the file in new tab. |
tabnew |
Open new untitled file. |
tabf[ind] |
Open quickopen window. |
tab /tabs |
Not supported. Doesn't make sense with VSCode. |
tabc[lose] |
Close active editor (tab). |
tabo[nly] |
Close other tabs in VSCode group (pane). This differs from VIM where a tab is a like a new window, but doesn't make sense in VSCode. |
tabn[ext] / gt |
Switch to next (or count tabs if argument is given) in the active VSCode group (pane). |
tabp[revious] / gT |
Switch to previous (or count tabs if argument is given) in the active VSCode group (pane). |
tabfir[st] |
Switch to the first tab in the active editor group. |
tabl[ast] |
Switch to the last tab in the active editor group. |
tabm[ove] |
Not supported yet. |
Buffer/window management
Command |
Key |
Description |
sp[lit] |
C-w s |
Split editor horizontally. With argument: open the specified file, e.g. :sp $MYVIMRC . File must exist. |
vs[plit] |
C-w v |
Split editor vertically. With argument: open the specified file. File must exist. |
new |
C-w n |
Like sp[lit] but create new untitled file if no argument given. |
vne[w] |
|
Like vs[plit] but create new untitled file if no argument given. |
|
C-w = |
Align all editors to have the same width. |
|
C-w _ |
Toggle maximized editor size. Pressing again will restore the size. |
|
[count] C-w + |
Increase editor height by (optional) count. |
|
[count] C-w - |
Decrease editor height by (optional) count. |
|
[count] C-w > |
Increase editor width by (optional) count. |
|
[count] C-w < |
Decrease editor width by (optional) count. |
on[ly] |
C-w o |
Without bang: merge all editor groups into the one. Don't close editors. With bang: close all editors from all groups except current one. |
|
C-w j/k/h/l |
Focus group below/above/left/right. |
|
C-w C-j/k/h/l |
Move editor to group below/above/left/right. |
|
C-w J/K/H/L |
Move whole editor group below/above/left/right. |
|
C-w w or C-w C-w |
Focus next group. The behavior may differ than in vim. |
|
C-w W or C-w p |
Focus previous group. The behavior may differ than in vim. C-w p is completely different from vim. |
|
C-w b |
Focus last editor group (most bottom-right). |
|
C-w r/R/x |
Not supported, use C-w C-j and similar to move editors. |
💡 Split size distribution is controlled by workbench.editor.splitSizing
setting. By default, it's distribute
,
which is equal to VIM's equalalways
and eadirection = 'both'
(default).
To use VSCode command 'Increase/decrease current view size' instead of separate bindings for width and height:
workbench.action.increaseViewSize
workbench.action.decreaseViewSize
Copy this into init.vim
function! s:manageEditorSize(...)
let count = a:1
let to = a:2
for i in range(1, count ? count : 1)
call VSCodeNotify(to ==# 'increase' ? 'workbench.action.increaseViewSize' : 'workbench.action.decreaseViewSize')
endfor
endfunction
" Sample keybindings. Note these override default keybindings mentioned above.
nnoremap <C-w>> <Cmd>call <SID>manageEditorSize(v:count, 'increase')<CR>
xnoremap <C-w>> <Cmd>call <SID>manageEditorSize(v:count, 'increase')<CR>
nnoremap <C-w>+ <Cmd>call <SID>manageEditorSize(v:count, 'increase')<CR>
xnoremap <C-w>+ <Cmd>call <SID>manageEditorSize(v:count, 'increase')<CR>
nnoremap <C-w>< <Cmd>call <SID>manageEditorSize(v:count, 'decrease')<CR>
xnoremap <C-w>< <Cmd>call <SID>manageEditorSize(v:count, 'decrease')<CR>
nnoremap <C-w>- <Cmd>call <SID>manageEditorSize(v:count, 'decrease')<CR>
xnoremap <C-w>- <Cmd>call <SID>manageEditorSize(v:count, 'decrease')<CR>
Insert mode special keys
Enabled by useCtrlKeysForInsertMode
(default true).
Refer to VIM's manual for their use.
- C-c
- C-o
- C-u
- C-w
- C-h
- C-t
- C-d
- C-j
- C-a
- C-r
Normal mode control keys
Enabled by useCtrlKeysForNormalMode
(default true).
Refer to VIM's manual for their use.
- C-a
- C-b
- C-c
- C-d
- C-e
- C-f
- C-i
- C-o
- C-r
- C-u
- C-v
- C-w
- C-x
- C-y
- C-z
- C-]
- C-j
- C-k
- C-l
- C-h
- C-/
Cmdline special keys
Always enabled.
Refer to VIM's manual for their use.
- C-h
- C-w
- C-u
- C-r (including C-rC-w and others)
- C-n
- C-p
- C-l
- C-g
- C-t
- Tab
🔧 Build
How to build (and install) from source:
Clone the repo locally.
git clone https://github.com/vscode-neovim/vscode-neovim
Install the dependencies.
npm install
Build the VSIX package:
npx vsce package -o vscode-neovim.vsix
From VSCode, use the Extensions: Install from VSIX
command to install the package.
How to develop:
- Open the repo in VSCode.
- Go to debug view and click
Run Extension
(F5).
How to run tests:
- Open the repo in VSCode.
- Go to debug view and click
Extension Tests
(F5).
- To run individual tests, modify
grep: ".*"
in src/test/suite/index.ts
.
📑 How it works
- VScode connects to Neovim instance.
- When opening a file, a scratch buffer is created within Neovim and being initialized with text content from VSCode.
- Normal/visual mode commands are being sent directly to Neovim. The extension listens for buffer events and applies
edits from Neovim.
- When entering the insert mode, the extensions stops listen for keystroke events and delegates typing mode to VSCode.
Changes are synced to neovim in periodic intervals.
- After pressing escape key from the insert mode, extension sends changes obtained from the insert mode to Neovim.
❤️ Credits & External Resources