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

💡 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

You can use a custom configuration file by specifying it with the -c or --config command line argument, for example hx -c path/to/custom-config.toml. Additionally, you can reload the configuration file by sending the USR1 signal to the Helix process on Unix operating systems, such as by using the command pkill -USR1 hx.

Editor

`[editor]` Section

Key	Description	Default
`scrolloff`	Number of lines of padding around the edge of the screen when scrolling	`5`
`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`
`cursorline`	Highlight all lines with a cursor	`false`
`cursorcolumn`	Highlight all columns with a cursor	`false`
`gutters`	Gutters to display: Available are `diagnostics` and `diff` and `line-numbers` and `spacer`, note that `diagnostics` also includes other features like breakpoints, 1-width padding will be inserted if gutters is non-empty	`["diagnostics", "spacer", "line-numbers", "spacer", "diff"]`
`auto-completion`	Enable automatic pop up of auto-completion	`true`
`auto-format`	Enable automatic formatting on save	`true`
`auto-save`	Enable automatic saving on the focus moving away from Helix. Requires focus event support from your terminal	`false`
`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 info boxes	`true`
`true-color`	Set to `true` to override automatic detection of terminal truecolor support in the event of a false negative	`false`
`rulers`	List of column positions at which to display the rulers. Can be overridden by language specific `rulers` in `languages.toml` file	`[]`
`bufferline`	Renders a line at the top of the editor displaying open buffers. Can be `always`, `never` or `multiple` (only shown if more than one buffer is in use)	`never`
`color-modes`	Whether to color the mode indicator with different colors depending on the mode itself	`false`

`[editor.statusline]` Section

Allows configuring the statusline at the bottom of the editor.

The configuration distinguishes between three areas of the status line:

[ ... ... LEFT ... ... | ... ... ... ... CENTER ... ... ... ... | ... ... RIGHT ... ... ]

Statusline elements can be defined as follows:

[editor.statusline]
left = ["mode", "spinner"]
center = ["file-name"]
right = ["diagnostics", "selections", "position", "file-encoding", "file-line-ending", "file-type"]
separator = "│"
mode.normal = "NORMAL"
mode.insert = "INSERT"
mode.select = "SELECT"

The [editor.statusline] key takes the following sub-keys:

Key	Description	Default
`left`	A list of elements aligned to the left of the statusline	`["mode", "spinner", "file-name"]`
`center`	A list of elements aligned to the middle of the statusline	`[]`
`right`	A list of elements aligned to the right of the statusline	`["diagnostics", "selections", "position", "file-encoding"]`
`separator`	The character used to separate elements in the statusline	`"│"`
`mode.normal`	The text shown in the `mode` element for normal mode	`"NOR"`
`mode.insert`	The text shown in the `mode` element for insert mode	`"INS"`
`mode.select`	The text shown in the `mode` element for select mode	`"SEL"`

The following statusline elements can be configured:

Key	Description
`mode`	The current editor mode (`mode.normal`/`mode.insert`/`mode.select`)
`spinner`	A progress spinner indicating LSP activity
`file-name`	The path/name of the opened file
`file-base-name`	The basename of the opened file
`file-modification-indicator`	The indicator to show whether the file is modified (a `[+]` appears when there are unsaved changes)
`file-encoding`	The encoding of the opened file if it differs from UTF-8
`file-line-ending`	The file line endings (CRLF or LF)
`total-line-numbers`	The total line numbers of the opened file
`file-type`	The type of the opened file
`diagnostics`	The number of warnings and/or errors
`workspace-diagnostics`	The number of warnings and/or errors on workspace
`selections`	The number of active selections
`primary-selection-length`	The number of characters currently in primary selection
`position`	The cursor position
`position-percentage`	The cursor position as a percentage of the total number of lines
`separator`	The string defined in `editor.statusline.separator` (defaults to `"│"`)
`spacer`	Inserts a space between elements (multiple/contiguous spacers may be specified)

`[editor.lsp]` Section

Key	Description	Default
`enable`	Enables LSP integration. Setting to false will completely disable language servers regardless of language settings.	`true`
`display-messages`	Display LSP progress messages below statusline¹	`false`
`auto-signature-help`	Enable automatic popup of signature help (parameter hints)	`true`
`display-signature-help-docs`	Display docs under signature help popup	`true`

By default, a progress spinner is shown in the statusline beside the file path.

`[editor.cursor-shape]` Section

Defines the shape of cursor in each mode. Valid values for these options are block, bar, underline, or hidden.

💡 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

Set options for file picker and global search. Ignoring a file means it is not visible in the Helix file picker and global search.

All git related options are only enabled in a git repository.

Key	Description	Default
`hidden`	Enables ignoring hidden files	true
`follow-links`	Follow symlinks instead of ignoring them	true
`deduplicate-links`	Ignore symlinks that point at files already shown in the picker	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

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

To disable auto-pairs altogether, set auto-pairs to false:

[editor]
auto-pairs = false # defaults to `true`

The default pairs are (){}[]''""``, but these can be customized by setting auto-pairs to a TOML table:

[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`

`[editor.whitespace]` Section

Options for rendering whitespace with visible characters. Use :set whitespace.render all to temporarily enable visible whitespace.

Key	Description	Default
`render`	Whether to render whitespace. May either be `"all"` or `"none"`, or a table with sub-keys `space`, `nbsp`, `tab`, and `newline`	`"none"`
`characters`	Literal characters to use when rendering whitespace. Sub-keys may be any of `tab`, `space`, `nbsp`, `newline` or `tabpad`	See example below

Example

[editor.whitespace]
render = "all"
# or control each character
[editor.whitespace.render]
space = "all"
tab = "all"
newline = "none"

[editor.whitespace.characters]
space = "·"
nbsp = "⍽"
tab = "→"
newline = "⏎"
tabpad = "·" # Tabs will look like "→···" (depending on tab width)

`[editor.indent-guides]` Section

Options for rendering vertical indent guides.

Key	Description	Default
`render`	Whether to render indent guides	`false`
`character`	Literal character to use for rendering the indent guide	`│`
`skip-levels`	Number of indent levels to skip	`0`

Example:

[editor.indent-guides]
render = true
character = "╎" # Some characters that work well: "▏", "┆", "┊", "⸽"
skip-levels = 1

`[editor.gutters]` Section

For simplicity, editor.gutters accepts an array of gutter types, which will use default settings for all gutter components.

[editor]
gutters = ["diff", "diagnostics", "line-numbers", "spacer"]

To customize the behavior of gutters, the [editor.gutters] section must be used. This section contains top level settings, as well as settings for specific gutter components as subsections.

Key	Description	Default
`layout`	A vector of gutters to display	`["diagnostics", "spacer", "line-numbers", "spacer", "diff"]`

Example:

[editor.gutters]
layout = ["diff", "diagnostics", "line-numbers", "spacer"]

`[editor.gutters.line-numbers]` Section

Options for the line number gutter

Key	Description	Default
`min-width`	The minimum number of characters to use	`3`

Example:

[editor.gutters.line-numbers]
min-width = 1

Key	Description	Default
`enable`	Whether soft wrapping is enabled	`false`
`max-wrap`	Maximum free space left at the end of the line	`20`
`max-indent-retain`	Maximum indentation to carry over when soft wrapping a line	`40`
`wrap-indicator`	Text inserted before soft wrapped lines, highlighted with `ui.virtual.wrap`	`↪`

Example:

[editor.soft-wrap]
enable = true
max-wrap = 25 # increase value to reduce forced mid-word wrapping
max-indent-retain = 0
wrap-indicator = ""  # set wrap-indicator to "" to hide it

Configuration

Editor

`[editor]` Section

`[editor.statusline]` Section

`[editor.lsp]` Section

`[editor.cursor-shape]` Section

`[editor.file-picker]` Section

`[editor.auto-pairs]` Section

`[editor.search]` Section

`[editor.whitespace]` Section

`[editor.indent-guides]` Section

`[editor.gutters]` Section

`[editor.gutters.line-numbers]` Section

`[editor.gutters.diagnotics]` Section

`[editor.gutters.diff]` Section

`[editor.gutters.spacer]` Section

`[editor.soft-wrap]` Section