💤 lazy.nvim

lazy.nvim is a modern plugin manager for Neovim.

✨ Features

• 📦 Manage all your Neovim plugins with a powerful UI
• 🚀 Fast startup times thanks to automatic caching and bytecode compilation of lua modules
• 💾 Partial clones instead of shallow clones
• 🔌 Automatic lazy-loading of lua modules and lazy-loading on events, commands, filetypes, and key mappings
• ⏳ Automatically install missing plugins before starting up Neovim, allowing you to start using it right away
• 💪 Async execution for improved performance
• 🛠️ No need to manually compile plugins
• 🧪 Correct sequencing of dependencies
• 📁 Configurable in multiple files
• 📚 Generates helptags of the headings in README.md files for plugins that don't have vimdocs
• 💻 Dev options and patterns for using local plugins
• 📊 Profiling tools to optimize performance
• 🔒 Lockfile lazy-lock.json to keep track of installed plugins
• 🔎 Automatically check for updates
• 📋 Commit, branch, tag, version, and full Semver support
• 📈 Statusline component to see the number of pending updates
• 🎨 Automatically lazy-loads colorschemes

⚡️ Requirements

• Neovim >= 0.8.0 (needs to be built with LuaJIT)
• Git >= 2.19.0 (for partial clones support)
• a Nerd Font (optional)

📦 Installation

You can add the following Lua code to your init.lua to bootstrap lazy.nvim

local lazypath = vim.fn.stdpath("data") .. "/lazy/lazy.nvim"
if not vim.loop.fs_stat(lazypath) then
  vim.fn.system({
    "git",
    "clone",
    "--filter=blob:none",
    "--single-branch",
    "https://github.com/folke/lazy.nvim.git",
    lazypath,
  })
end
vim.opt.runtimepath:prepend(lazypath)

Next step is to add lazy.nvim to the top of your init.lua

require("lazy").setup(plugins, opts)

• plugins: this should be a table or a string
  • table: a list with your Plugin Spec
  • string: a Lua module name that contains your Plugin Spec. See Structuring Your Plugins
• opts: see Configuration (optional)

-- example using a list of specs with the default options
vim.g.mapleader = " " -- make sure to set `mapleader` before lazy so your mappings are correct

require("lazy").setup({
  "folke/which-key.nvim",
  { "folke/neoconf.nvim", cmd = "Neoconf" },
  "folke/neodev.nvim",
})

ℹ️ It is recommended to run :checkhealth lazy after installation

🔌 Plugin Spec

Property	Type	Description
[1]	string?	Short plugin url. Will be expanded using config.git.url_format
dir	string?	A directory pointing to a local plugin
url	string?	A custom git url where the plugin is hosted
name	string?	A custom name for the plugin used for the local plugin directory and as the display name
dev	boolean?	When true, a local plugin directory will be used instead. See config.dev
lazy	boolean?	When true, the plugin will only be loaded when needed. Lazy-loaded plugins are automatically loaded when their Lua modules are required, or when one of the lazy-loading handlers triggers
enabled	boolean? or fun():boolean	When false, or if the function returns false, then this plugin will not be used
dependencies	LazySpec[]	A list of plugin specs that should be loaded when the plugin loads. Dependencies are always lazy-loaded unless specified otherwise
init	fun(LazyPlugin)	init functions are always executed during startup
config	fun(LazyPlugin) or true or table	config is executed when the plugin loads. You can also set to true or pass a table, that will be passed to require("plugin").setup(opts)
build	fun(LazyPlugin) or string	build is executed when a plugin is installed or updated. If it's a string it will be ran as a shell command. When prefixed with : it is a Neovim command.
branch	string?	Branch of the repository
tag	string?	Tag of the repository
commit	string?	Commit of the repository
version	string?	Version to use from the repository. Full Semver ranges are supported
pin	boolean?	When true, this plugin will not be included in updates
event	string? or string[]	Lazy-load on event
cmd	string? or string[]	Lazy-load on command
ft	string? or string[]	Lazy-load on filetype
keys	string? or string[] or LazyKeys[]	Lazy-load on key mapping
module	false?	Do not automatically load this Lua module when it's required somewhere

Lazy Loading

lazy.nvim automagically lazy-loads Lua modules, so it is not needed to specify module=... everywhere in your plugin specification. This mean that if you have a plugin A that is lazy-loaded and a plugin B that requires a module of plugin A, then plugin A will be loaded on demand as expected.

If you don't want this behavior for a certain plugin, you can specify that with module=false. You can then manually load the plugin with :Lazy load foobar.nvim.

Colorscheme plugins can be configured with lazy=true. The plugin will automagically load when doing colorscheme foobar.

You can configure lazy.nvim to lazy-load all plugins by default with config.defaults.lazy = true.

Additionally, you can also lazy-load on events, commands, file types and key mappings.

Plugins will be lazy-loaded when one of the following is true:

• the plugin only exists as a dependency in your spec
• it has an event, cmd, ft or keys key
• config.defaults.lazy == true

⌨️ Lazy Key Mappings

The keys property can be a string or string[] for simple normal-mode mappings, or it can be a LazyKeys table with the following key-value pairs:

• [1]: (string) lhs (required)
• [2]: (string|fun()) rhs (optional)
• mode: (string|string[]) mode (optional, defaults to "n")
• any other option valid for vim.keymap.set

Key mappings will load the plugin the first time they get executed.

When [2] is nil, then the real mapping has to be created by the config() function.

-- Example for neo-tree.nvim
{
  "nvim-neo-tree/neo-tree.nvim",
    keys = {
      { "<leader>ft", "<cmd>Neotree toggle<cr>", desc = "NeoTree" },
    },
    config = function()
      require("neo-tree").setup()
      end,
}

Versioning

If you want to install a specific revision of a plugin, you can use commit, tag, branch, version.

The version property supports Semver ranges.

Click to see some examples

• *: latest stable version (this excludes pre-release versions)
• 1.2.x: any version that starts with 1.2, such as 1.2.0, 1.2.3, etc.
• ^1.2.3: any version that is compatible with 1.2.3, such as 1.3.0, 1.4.5, etc., but not 2.0.0.
• ~1.2.3: any version that is compatible with 1.2.3, such as 1.2.4, 1.2.5, but not 1.3.0.
• >1.2.3: any version that is greater than 1.2.3, such as 1.3.0, 1.4.5, etc.
• >=1.2.3: any version that is greater than or equal to 1.2.3, such as 1.2.3, 1.3.0, 1.4.5, etc.
• <1.2.3: any version that is less than 1.2.3, such as 1.1.0, 1.0.5, etc.
• <=1.2.3: any version that is less than or equal to 1.2.3, such as 1.2.3, 1.1.0, 1.0.5, etc

You can set config.defaults.version = "*" to install the latest stable version of plugins that support Semver.

Examples

return {
  -- the colorscheme should be available when starting Neovim
  "folke/tokyonight.nvim",

  -- I have a separate config.mappings file where I require which-key.
  -- With lazy the plugin will be automatically loaded when it is required somewhere
  { "folke/which-key.nvim", lazy = true },

  {
    "nvim-neorg/neorg",
    -- lazy-load on filetype
    ft = "norg",
    -- custom config that will be executed when loading the plugin
    config = function()
      require("neorg").setup()
    end,
  },

  -- the above could also be written as
  {
    "nvim-neorg/neorg",
    ft = "norg",
    config = true, -- run require("norg").setup()
  },

  -- or set custom config
  {
    "nvim-neorg/neorg",
    ft = "norg",
    config = { foo = "bar" }, -- run require("norg").setup({foo = "bar"})
  },

  {
    "dstein64/vim-startuptime",
    -- lazy-load on a command
    cmd = "StartupTime",
  },

  {
    "hrsh7th/nvim-cmp",
    -- load cmp on InsertEnter
    event = "InsertEnter",
    -- these dependencies will only be loaded when cmp loads
    -- dependencies are always lazy-loaded unless specified otherwise
    dependencies = {
      "hrsh7th/cmp-nvim-lsp",
      "hrsh7th/cmp-buffer",
    },
    config = function()
      -- ...
    end,
  },

  -- you can use the VeryLazy event for things that can
  -- load later and are not important for the initial UI
  { "stevearc/dressing.nvim", event = "VeryLazy" },

  {
    "cshuaimin/ssr.nvim",
    -- init is always executed during startup, but doesn't load the plugin yet.
    init = function()
      vim.keymap.set({ "n", "x" }, "<leader>cR", function()
        -- this require will automatically load the plugin
        require("ssr").open()
      end, { desc = "Structural Replace" })
    end,
  },

  {
    "monaqa/dial.nvim",
    -- lazy-load on keys
    -- mode is `n` by default. For more advanced options, check the section on key mappings
    keys = { "<C-a>", { "<C-x>", mode = "n" } },
  },

  -- local plugins need to be explicitly configured with dir
  { dir = "~/projects/secret.nvim" },

  -- you can use a custom url to fetch a plugin
  { url = "git@github.com:folke/noice.nvim.git" },

  -- local plugins can also be configure with the dev option.
  -- This will use {config.dev.path}/noice.nvim/ instead of fetching it from Github
  -- With the dev option, you can easily switch between the local and installed version of a plugin
  { "folke/noice.nvim", dev = true },
}

⚙️ Configuration

lazy.nvim comes with the following defaults:

{
  root = vim.fn.stdpath("data") .. "/lazy", -- directory where plugins will be installed
  defaults = {
    lazy = false, -- should plugins be lazy-loaded?
    version = nil,
    -- version = "*", -- enable this to try installing the latest stable versions of plugins
  },
  lockfile = vim.fn.stdpath("config") .. "/lazy-lock.json", -- lockfile generated after running update.
  concurrency = nil, ---@type number limit the maximum amount of concurrent tasks
  git = {
    -- defaults for the `Lazy log` command
    -- log = { "-10" }, -- show the last 10 commits
    log = { "--since=3 days ago" }, -- show commits from the last 3 days
    timeout = 120, -- kill processes that take more than 2 minutes
    url_format = "https://github.com/%s.git",
  },
  dev = {
    -- directory where you store your local plugin projects
    path = "~/projects",
    ---@type string[] plugins that match these patterns will use your local versions instead of being fetched from GitHub
    patterns = {}, -- For example {"folke"}
  },
  install = {
    -- install missing plugins on startup. This doesn't increase startup time.
    missing = true,
    -- try to load one of these colorschemes when starting an installation during startup
    colorscheme = { "habamax" },
  },
  ui = {
    -- a number <1 is a percentage., >1 is a fixed size
    size = { width = 0.8, height = 0.8 },
    -- The border to use for the UI window. Accepts same border values as |nvim_open_win()|.
    border = "none",
    icons = {
      cmd = " ",
      config = "",
      event = "",
      ft = " ",
      init = " ",
      keys = " ",
      plugin = " ",
      runtime = " ",
      source = " ",
      start = "",
      task = "✔ ",
    },
    throttle = 20, -- how frequently should the ui process render events
  },
  checker = {
    -- automatically check for plugin updates
    enabled = false,
    concurrency = nil, ---@type number? set to 1 to check for updates very slowly
    notify = true, -- get a notification when new updates are found
    frequency = 3600, -- check for updates every hour
  },
  change_detection = {
    -- automatically check for config file changes and reload the ui
    enabled = true,
    notify = true, -- get a notification when changes are found
  },
  performance = {
    cache = {
      enabled = true,
      path = vim.fn.stdpath("cache") .. "/lazy/cache",
      -- Once one of the following events triggers, caching will be disabled.
      -- To cache all modules, set this to `{}`, but that is not recommended.
      -- The default is to disable on:
      --  * VimEnter: not useful to cache anything else beyond startup
      --  * BufReadPre: this will be triggered early when opening a file from the command line directly
      disable_events = { "VimEnter", "BufReadPre" },
    },
    reset_packpath = true, -- reset the package path to improve startup time
    rtp = {
      reset = true, -- reset the runtime path to $VIMRUNTIME and your config directory
      ---@type string[]
      paths = {}, -- add any custom paths here that you want to indluce in the rtp
      ---@type string[] list any plugins you want to disable here
      disabled_plugins = {
        -- "gzip",
        -- "matchit",
        -- "matchparen",
        -- "netrwPlugin",
        -- "tarPlugin",
        -- "tohtml",
        -- "tutor",
        -- "zipPlugin",
      },
    },
  },
  -- lazy can generate helptags from the headings in markdown readme files,
  -- so :help works even for plugins that don't have vim docs.
  -- when the readme opens with :help it will be correctly displayed as markdown
  readme = {
    root = vim.fn.stdpath("state") .. "/lazy/readme",
    files = { "README.md" },
    -- only generate markdown helptags for plugins that dont have docs
    skip_if_doc_exists = true,
  },
}

If you don't want to use a Nerd Font, you can replace the icons with Unicode symbols.

{
  ui = {
    icons = {
      cmd = "⌘",
      config = "🛠",
      event = "📅",
      ft = "📂",
      init = "⚙",
      keys = "🗝",
      plugin = "🔌",
      runtime = "💻",
      source = "📄",
      start = "🚀",
      task = "📌",
    },
  },
}

🚀 Usage

Plugins are managed with the :Lazy command. Open the help with <?> to see all the key mappings.

You can press <CR> on a plugin to show its details. Most properties can be hovered with <K> to open links, help files, readmes, git commits and git issues.

Lazy can automatically check for updates in the background. This feature can be enabled with config.checker.enabled = true.

Any operation can be started from the UI, with a sub command or an API function:

Command	Lua	Description
:Lazy check [plugins]	require("lazy").check(opts?)	Check for updates and show the log (git fetch)
:Lazy clean [plugins]	require("lazy").clean(opts?)	Clean plugins that are no longer needed
:Lazy clear	require("lazy").clear()	Clear finished tasks
:Lazy debug	require("lazy").debug()	Show debug information
:Lazy help	require("lazy").help()	Toggle this help page
:Lazy home	require("lazy").home()	Go back to plugin list
:Lazy install [plugins]	require("lazy").install(opts?)	Install missing plugins
:Lazy load {plugins}	require("lazy").load(opts)	Load a plugin that has not been loaded yet. Similar to :packadd. Like :Lazy load foo.nvim
:Lazy log [plugins]	require("lazy").log(opts?)	Show recent updates
:Lazy profile	require("lazy").profile()	Show detailed profiling
:Lazy restore [plugins]	require("lazy").restore(opts?)	Updates all plugins to the state in the lockfile
:Lazy sync [plugins]	require("lazy").sync(opts?)	Run install, clean and update
:Lazy update [plugins]	require("lazy").update(opts?)	Update plugins. This will also update the lockfile

Any command can have a bang to make the command wait till it finished. For example, if you want to sync lazy from the cmdline, you can use:

$ nvim --headless "+Lazy! sync" +qa

opts is a table with the following key-values:

• wait: when true, then the call will wait till the operation completed
• show: when false, the UI will not be shown
• plugins: a list of plugin names to run the operation on
• concurrency: limit the number of concurrently running tasks

If you want to display the number of plugins on your dashboard, you can use this simple API:

local plugins = require("lazy").stats().count

lazy.nvim provides a statusline component that you can use to show the number of pending updates. Make sure to enable config.checker.enabled = true to make this work.

Example of configuring lualine.nvim

require("lualine").setup({
  sections = {
    lualine_x = {
      {
        require("lazy.status").updates,
        cond = require("lazy.status").has_updates,
        color = { fg = "#ff9e64" },
      },
    },
  },
})

🔒 Lockfile lazy-lock.json

After every update, the local lockfile is updated with the installed revisions. It is recommended to have this file under version control.

If you use your Neovim config on multiple machines, using the lockfile, you can ensure that the same version of every plugin is installed.

If you are on another machine, you can do :Lazy restore, to update all your plugins to the version from the lockfile.

⚡ Performance

Great care has been taken to make the startup code (lazy.core) as efficient as possible. During startup, all Lua files used before VimEnter or BufReadPre are byte-compiled and cached, similar to what impatient.nvim does.

My config for example loads in about 11ms with 93 plugins. I do a lot of lazy-loading though :)

lazy.nvim comes with an advanced profiler :Lazy profile to help you improve performance. The profiling view shows you why and how long it took to load your plugins.

🪲 Debug

See an overview of active lazy-loading handlers and what's in the module cache

▶️ Startup Sequence

lazy.nvim does NOT use Neovim packages and even disables plugin loading completely (vim.go.loadplugins = false). It takes over the complete startup sequence for more flexibility and better performance.

In practice this means that step 10 of Neovim Initialization is done by Lazy:

1. all the plugins' init() functions are executed
2. all plugins with lazy=false are loaded. This includes sourcing /plugin and /ftdetect files. (/after will not be sourced yet)
3. all files from /plugin and /ftdetect directories in you rtp are sourced (excluding /after)
4. all /after/plugin files are sourced (this inludes /after from plugins)

Files from runtime directories are always sourced in alphabetical order.

📂 Structuring Your Plugins

Some users may want to split their plugin specs in multiple files. Instead of passing a spec table to setup(), you can use a Lua module. The specs from the module and any sub-modules will be merged together in the final spec, so it is not needed to add require calls in your main plugin file to the other files.

The benefits of using this approach:

• simple to add new plugin specs. Just create a new file in your plugins module.
• allows for caching of all your plugin specs. This becomes important if you have a lot of smaller plugin specs.
• spec changes will automatically be reloaded when they're updated, so the :Lazy UI is always up to date

Example:

• ~/.config/nvim/init.lua

require("lazy").setup("plugins")

• ~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins.lua or ~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/init.lua (this file is optional)

return {
  "folke/neodev.nvim",
    "folke/which-key.nvim",
    { "folke/neoconf.nvim", cmd = "Neoconf" },
}

• any lua file in ~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/*.lua will be automatically merged in the main plugin spec

For a real-life example, you can check my personal dots:

• init.lua where I require config.lazy
• config.lazy where I bootstrap and setup lazy.nvim
• config.plugins is my main plugin config module
• Any submodule of config.plugins (submodules) will be automatically loaded as well.

📦 Migration Guide

packer.nvim

• setup ➡️ init
• requires ➡️ dependencies
• as ➡️ name
• opt ➡️ lazy
• run ➡️ build
• lock ➡️ pin
• disable=true ➡️ enabled = false
• tag='*' ➡️ version="*"
• after ℹ️ not needed for most use-cases. Use dependencies otherwise.
• wants ℹ️ not needed for most use-cases. Use dependencies otherwise.
• module is auto-loaded. No need to specify
• keys spec is different

With packer wants, requires and after can be used to manage dependencies. With lazy, this isn't needed for most of the lua dependencies. They can be installed just like normal plugins (even with lazy=true) and will be loaded when other plugins need them. The dependencies key can be used to group those required plugins with the one that requires them. The plugins which are added as dependencies will always be lazy-loaded and loaded when the plugin is loaded.

paq-nvim

• as ➡️ name
• opt ➡️ lazy
• run ➡️ build

❌ Uninstalling

To uninstall lazy.nvim, you need to remove the following files and directories:

• data: ~/.local/share/nvim/lazy
• state: ~/.local/state/nvim/lazy
• lockfile: ~/.config/nvim/lazy-lock.json

paths can differ if you changed XDG environment variables.

📦 Other Neovim Plugin Managers in Lua

• packer.nvim
• paq-nvim
• neopm
• dep
• optpack.nvim
• pact.nvim