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

You may also specify a file to use for configuration with the -c or --config CLI argument: hx -c path/to/custom-config.toml.

It is also possible to trigger configuration file reloading by sending the USR1 signal to the helix process, e.g. via pkill -USR1 hx. This is only supported on unix operating systems.

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 `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"]`
`auto-completion`	Enable automatic pop up of auto-completion.	`true`
`auto-format`	Enable automatic formatting on save.	`true`
`auto-save`	Enable automatic saving on 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 infoboxes	`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-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
`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. Note that due to limitations of the terminal environment, only the primary cursor can change shape. Valid values for these options are block, bar, underline, or hidden.

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.

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

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

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`, `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