# Helix [](https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/actions)  A kakoune / neovim inspired editor, written in Rust. The editing model is very heavily based on kakoune; during development I found myself agreeing with most of kakoune's design decisions. For more information, see the [website](https://helix-editor.com) or [documentation](https://docs.helix-editor.com/). All shortcuts/keymaps can be found [in the documentation on the website](https://docs.helix-editor.com/keymap.html). [Troubleshooting](https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/wiki/Troubleshooting) # Features - Vim-like modal editing - Multiple selections - Built-in language server support - Smart, incremental syntax highlighting and code editing via tree-sitter It's a terminal-based editor first, but I'd like to explore a custom renderer (similar to emacs) in wgpu or skulpin. Note: Only certain languages have indentation definitions at the moment. Check `runtime/queries/<lang>/` for `indents.toml`. # Installation We provide packaging for various distributions, but here's a quick method to build from source. ``` git clone --recurse-submodules --shallow-submodules -j8 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 overriden via the `HELIX_RUNTIME` environment variable. Packages already solve this for you by wrapping the `hx` binary with a wrapper that sets the variable to the install dir. > NOTE: running via cargo also doesn't require setting explicit `HELIX_RUNTIME` path, it will automatically > detect the `runtime` directory in the project root. [](https://repology.org/project/helix/versions) ## MacOS Helix can be installed on MacOS through homebrew via: ``` brew tap helix-editor/helix brew install helix ``` # Contributing Contributors are very welcome! **No contribution is too small and all contributions are valued.** Some suggestions to get started: - You can look at the [good first issue](https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues?q=is%3Aopen+label%3AE-easy+label%3AE-good-first-issue) label on the issue tracker. - Help with packaging on various distributions needed! - To use print debugging to the [Helix log file](https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/wiki/FAQ#access-the-log-file), you must: * Print using `log::info!`, `warn!`, or `error!`. (`log::info!("helix!")`) * Pass the appropriate verbosity level option for the desired log level. (`hx -v <file>` for info, more `v`s for higher severity inclusive) - If your preferred language is missing, integrating a tree-sitter grammar for it and defining syntax highlight queries for it is straight forward and doesn't require much knowledge of the internals. We provide an [architecture.md](./docs/architecture.md) that should give you a good overview of the internals. # Getting help Your question might already be answered on the [FAQ](https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/wiki/FAQ). Discuss the project on the community [Matrix Space](https://matrix.to/#/#helix-community:matrix.org) (make sure to join `#helix-editor:matrix.org` if you're on a client that doesn't support Matrix Spaces yet).