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helix/book/src/editor.md

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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
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"

[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"

  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! ↩︎