Configuration

To override global configuration parameters, create a config.toml file located in your config directory:

Linux and Mac: ~/.config/helix/config.toml
Windows: %AppData%\helix\config.toml

Hint: You can easily open the config file by typing :config-open within Helix normal mode.

Example config:

theme = "onedark"

[editor]
line-number = "relative"
mouse = false

[editor.cursor-shape]
insert = "bar"
normal = "block"
select = "underline"

[editor.file-picker]
hidden = false

Editor

`[editor]` Section

Key	Description	Default
`scrolloff`	Number of lines of padding around the edge of the screen when scrolling.	`3`
`mouse`	Enable mouse mode.	`true`
`middle-click-paste`	Middle click paste support.	`true`
`scroll-lines`	Number of lines to scroll per scroll wheel step.	`3`
`shell`	Shell to use when running external commands.	Unix: `["sh", "-c"]` Windows: `["cmd", "/C"]`
`line-number`	Line number display: `absolute` simply shows each line's number, while `relative` shows the distance from the current line. When unfocused or in insert mode, `relative` will still show absolute line numbers.	`absolute`
`auto-completion`	Enable automatic pop up of auto-completion.	`true`
`idle-timeout`	Time in milliseconds since last keypress before idle timers trigger. Used for autocompletion, set to 0 for instant.	`400`
`completion-trigger-len`	The min-length of word under cursor to trigger autocompletion	`2`
`auto-info`	Whether to display infoboxes	`true`
`true-color`	Set to `true` to override automatic detection of terminal truecolor support in the event of a false negative.	`false`

`[editor.cursor-shape]` Section

Defines the shape of cursor in each mode. Note that due to limitations of the terminal environment, only the primary cursor can change shape.

Key	Description	Default
`normal`	Cursor shape in normal mode	`block`
`insert`	Cursor shape in insert mode	`block`
`select`	Cursor shape in select mode	`block`

`[editor.file-picker]` Section

Sets options for file picker and global search. All but the last key listed in the default file-picker configuration below are IgnoreOptions: whether hidden files and files listed within ignore files are ignored by (not visible in) the helix file picker and global search. There is also one other key, max-depth available, which is not defined by default.

Key	Description	Default
`hidden`	Enables ignoring hidden files.	true
`parents`	Enables reading ignore files from parent directories.	true
`ignore`	Enables reading `.ignore` files.	true
`git-ignore`	Enables reading `.gitignore` files.	true
`git-global`	Enables reading global .gitignore, whose path is specified in git's config: `core.excludefile` option.	true
`git-exclude`	Enables reading `.git/info/exclude` files.	true
`max-depth`	Set with an integer value for maximum depth to recurse.	Defaults to `None`.

`[editor.auto-pairs]` Section

Enable automatic insertion of pairs to parentheses, brackets, etc. Can be a simple boolean value, or a specific mapping of pairs of single characters.

Key	Description
`false`	Completely disable auto pairing, regardless of language-specific settings
`true`	Use the default pairs: (){}[]''""``
Mapping of pairs	e.g. `{ "(" = ")", "{" = "}", ... }`

Example

[editor.auto-pairs]
'(' = ')'
'{' = '}'
'[' = ']'
'"' = '"'
'`' = '`'
'<' = '>'

Additionally, this setting can be used in a language config. Unless the editor setting is false, this will override the editor config in documents with this language.

Example languages.toml that adds <> and removes ''

[[language]]
name = "rust"

[language.auto-pairs]
'(' = ')'
'{' = '}'
'[' = ']'
'"' = '"'
'`' = '`'
'<' = '>'

`[editor.search]` Section

Search specific options.

Key	Description	Default
`smart-case`	Enable smart case regex searching (case insensitive unless pattern contains upper case characters)	`true`
`wrap-around`	Whether the search should wrap after depleting the matches	`true`

LSP

To display all language server messages in the status line add the following to your config.toml:

[lsp]
display-messages = true