helix/book/src/editor.md

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.diagnostics] Section
  • [editor.gutters.diff] Section
  • [editor.gutters.spacer] Section
• [editor.soft-wrap] Section
• [editor.smart-tab] Section
• [editor.inline-diagnostics] Section

[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
idle-timeout	Time in milliseconds since last keypress before idle timers trigger.	250
completion-timeout	Time in milliseconds after typing a word character before completions are shown, set to 5 for instant.	250
preview-completion-insert	Whether to apply completion item instantly when selected	true
completion-trigger-len	The min-length of word under cursor to trigger autocompletion	2
completion-replace	Set to true to make completions always replace the entire word and not just the part before the cursor	false
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
undercurl	Set to true to override automatic detection of terminal undercurl 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
text-width	Maximum line length. Used for the :reflow command and soft-wrapping if soft-wrap.wrap-at-text-width is set	80
workspace-lsp-roots	Directories relative to the workspace root that are treated as LSP roots. Should only be set in .helix/config.toml	[]
default-line-ending	The line ending to use for new documents. Can be native, lf, crlf, ff, cr or nel. native uses the platform's native line ending (crlf on Windows, otherwise lf).	native
insert-final-newline	Whether to automatically insert a trailing line-ending on write if missing	true
popup-border	Draw border around popup, menu, all, or none	none
indent-heuristic	How the indentation for a newly inserted line is computed: simple just copies the indentation level from the previous line, tree-sitter computes the indentation based on the syntax tree and hybrid combines both approaches. If the chosen heuristic is not available, a different one will be used as a fallback (the fallback order being hybrid -> tree-sitter -> simple).	hybrid
jump-label-alphabet	The characters that are used to generate two character jump labels. Characters at the start of the alphabet are used first.	"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
end-of-line-diagnostics	Minimum severity of diagnostics to render at the end of the line. Set to disable to disable entirely. Refer to the setting about inline-diagnostics for more details	"disable"

[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", "read-only-indicator", "file-modification-indicator"]
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", "register", "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-absolute-path	The absolute 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)
read-only-indicator	An indicator that shows [readonly] when a file cannot be written
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)
version-control	The current branch name or detached commit hash of the opened workspace
register	The current selected register

[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-inlay-hints	Display inlay hints2	false
display-signature-help-docs	Display docs under signature help popup	true
snippets	Enables snippet completions. Requires a server restart (:lsp-restart) to take effect after :config-reload/:set.	true
goto-reference-include-declaration	Include declaration in the goto references popup.	true

[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-symlinks	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.excludesfile option	true
git-exclude	Enables reading .git/info/exclude files	true
max-depth	Set with an integer value for maximum depth to recurse	Unset by default

Ignore files can be placed locally as .ignore or put in your home directory as ~/.ignore. They support the usual ignore and negative ignore (unignore) rules used in .gitignore files.

Additionally, you can use Helix-specific ignore files by creating a local .helix/ignore file in the current workspace or a global ignore file located in your Helix config directory:

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

Example:

# unignore in file picker and global search
!.github/
!.gitignore
!.gitattributes

[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.auto-save] Section

Control auto save behavior.

Key	Description	Default
focus-lost	Enable automatic saving on the focus moving away from Helix. Requires focus event support from your terminal	false
after-delay.enable	Enable automatic saving after auto-save.after-delay.timeout milliseconds have passed since last edit.	false
after-delay.timeout	Time in milliseconds since last edit before auto save timer triggers.	3000

[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, nnbsp, tab, and newline	none
characters	Literal characters to use when rendering whitespace. Sub-keys may be any of tab, space, nbsp, nnbsp, newline or tabpad	See example below

Example

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

[editor.whitespace.characters]
space = "·"
nbsp = "⍽"
nnbsp = "␣"
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

[editor.gutters.diagnostics] Section

Currently unused

[editor.gutters.diff] Section

The diff gutter option displays colored bars indicating whether a git diff represents that a line was added, removed or changed. These colors are controlled by the theme attributes diff.plus, diff.minus and diff.delta.

Other diff providers will eventually be supported by a future plugin system.

There are currently no options for this section.

[editor.gutters.spacer] Section

Currently unused

[editor.soft-wrap] Section

Options for soft wrapping lines that exceed the view width:

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	↪
wrap-at-text-width	Soft wrap at text-width instead of using the full viewport size.	false

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

[editor.smart-tab] Section

Options for navigating and editing using tab key.

Key	Description	Default
enable	If set to true, then when the cursor is in a position with non-whitespace to its left, instead of inserting a tab, it will run move_parent_node_end. If there is only whitespace to the left, then it inserts a tab as normal. With the default bindings, to explicitly insert a tab character, press Shift-tab.	true
supersede-menu	Normally, when a menu is on screen, such as when auto complete is triggered, the tab key is bound to cycling through the items. This means when menus are on screen, one cannot use the tab key to trigger the smart-tab command. If this option is set to true, the smart-tab command always takes precedence, which means one cannot use the tab key to cycle through menu items. One of the other bindings must be used instead, such as arrow keys or C-n/C-p.	false

Due to lack of support for S-tab in some terminals, the default keybindings don't fully embrace smart-tab editing experience. If you enjoy smart-tab navigation and a terminal that supports the Enhanced Keyboard protocol, consider setting extra keybindings:

[keys.normal]
tab = "move_parent_node_end"
S-tab = "move_parent_node_start"

[keys.insert]
S-tab = "move_parent_node_start"

[keys.select]
tab = "extend_parent_node_end"
S-tab = "extend_parent_node_start"

[editor.inline-diagnostics] Section

Options for rendering diagnostics inside the text like shown below

fn main() {
  let foo = bar;
            └─ no such value in this scope
}

Key	Description	Default
cursor-line	The minimum severity that a diagnostic must have to be shown inline on the line that contains the primary cursor. Set to disable to not show any diagnostics inline. This option does not have any effect when in insert-mode and will only take effect 350ms after moving the cursor to a different line.	"disable"
other-lines	The minimum severity that a diagnostic must have to be shown inline on a line that does not contain the cursor-line. Set to disable to not show any diagnostics inline.	"disable"
prefix-len	How many horizontal bars ─ are rendered before the diagnostic text.	1
max-wrap	Equivalent of the editor.soft-wrap.max-wrap option for diagnostics.	20
max-diagnostics	Maximum number of diagnostics to render inline for a given line	10

The (first) diagnostic with the highest severity that is not shown inline is rendered at the end of the line (as long as its severity is higher than the end-of-line-diagnostics config option):

fn main() {
  let baz = 1;
  let foo = bar; a local variable with a similar name exists: baz
            └─ no such value in this scope
}

The new diagnostic rendering is not yet enabled by default. As soon as end of line or inline diagnostics are enabled the old diagnostics rendering is automatically disabled. The recommended default setting are:

end-of-line-diagnostics = "hint"
[editor.inline-diagnostics]
cursor-line = "warning" # show warnings and errors on the cursorline inline

---

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

2. You may also have to activate them in the LSP config for them to appear, not just in Helix. Inlay hints in Helix are still being improved on and may be a little bit laggy/janky under some circumstances. Please report any bugs you see so we can fix them! ↩︎