3.6 KiB
Installation
We provide pre-built binaries on the GitHub Releases page.
OSX
Helix is available in homebrew-core:
brew install helix
Linux
NixOS
A flake containing the package is available in
the project root. The flake can also be used to spin up a reproducible development
shell for working on Helix with nix develop.
Flake outputs are cached for each push to master using Cachix. The flake is configured to automatically make use of this cache assuming the user accepts the new settings on first use.
If you are using a version of Nix without flakes enabled you can
install Cachix cli; cachix use helix will
configure Nix to use cached outputs when possible.
Arch Linux
Releases are available in the community repository.
A helix-git package is also available on the AUR, which builds the master branch.
Fedora Linux
You can install the COPR package for Helix via
sudo dnf copr enable varlad/helix
sudo dnf install helix
Void Linux
sudo xbps-install helix
Build from source
git clone https://github.com/helix-editor/helix
cd helix
cargo install --path helix-term
This will install the hx binary to $HOME/.cargo/bin.
Helix also needs its runtime files so make sure to copy/symlink the runtime/ directory into the
config directory (for example ~/.config/helix/runtime on Linux/macOS). This location can be overridden
via the HELIX_RUNTIME environment variable.
| OS | command |
|---|---|
| windows(cmd.exe) | xcopy /e /i runtime %AppData%/helix/runtime |
| windows(powershell) | xcopy /e /i runtime $Env:AppData\helix\runtime |
| linux/macos | ln -s $PWD/runtime ~/.config/helix/runtime |
To use Helix in desktop environments that supports XDG desktop menu, including Gnome and KDE, copy the provided .desktop file to the correct folder:
cp contrib/Helix.desktop ~/.local/share/applications
To use another terminal than the default, you will need to modify the .desktop file. For example, to use kitty:
sed -i "s|Exec=hx %F|Exec=kitty hx %F|g" ~/.local/share/applications/Helix.desktop
sed -i "s|Terminal=true|Terminal=false|g" ~/.local/share/applications/Helix.desktop
Please note: there is no icon for Helix yet, so the system default will be used.
Finishing up the installation
To make sure everything is set up as expected you should finally run the helix healthcheck via
hx --health
For more information on the information displayed in the health check results refer to Healthcheck.
Building tree-sitter grammars
Tree-sitter grammars must be fetched and compiled if not pre-packaged.
Fetch grammars with hx --grammar fetch (requires git) and compile them
with hx --grammar build (requires a C++ compiler).
Installing language servers
Language servers can optionally be installed if you want their features (auto-complete, diagnostics etc.). Follow the instructions on the wiki page to add your language servers of choice.