Neovim

Neovim is a modern Vim. Its config, ~/.config/nvim/init.lua, is written in Lua and has no plugins — just settings, each with a comment saying what it does and its default.

The installer copies the config but doesn’t install Neovim: sudo apt install neovim or brew install neovim.

Settings

Area	Setting	Effect
Line numbers	number + relativenumber	current line shows its number; others show distance from it (handy for 5j, 3k)
	cursorline	highlight the cursor’s line
	signcolumn = "yes"	always reserve the left column, so text doesn’t jump when git or error signs appear
Colour	termguicolors	24-bit colour
	colorcolumn = "80,100,120,132"	four guide lines, subtle dark grey
Mouse & clipboard	mouse = "a"	mouse everywhere
	clipboard = "unnamedplus"	copy/paste uses the system clipboard
Indent	tabstop, shiftwidth, softtabstop = 4	indent width 4
	expandtab = false	real tab characters, not spaces (YAML and Python files still get spaces, from Neovim’s built-in file-type rules)
	autoindent, smartindent	keep and guess indentation
Scrolling	wrap = false	long lines scroll sideways
	scrolloff = 5, sidescrolloff = 8	keep some lines/columns visible around the cursor
Search	ignorecase + smartcase	case-insensitive unless you type a capital
Splits	splitbelow, splitright	new splits open below / to the right
Speed	updatetime = 250	faster updates for diagnostics and plugins (default 4000 ms)
Cursor	guicursor	blinking block; thin bar in insert mode; underline in replace mode

Edge cases

• Clipboard on Linux needs a helper program. unnamedplus uses wl-copy (Wayland) or xclip / xsel (X11). Without one, yanking only fills Neovim’s own register. Over SSH there’s usually no clipboard at all. Check with :checkhealth provider.
• Tabs, not spaces, the same as Vim and nano. For spaces, set expandtab = true.
• The cursor shape only changes in terminals that support it (kitty does). The guicursor block in init.lua has a long comment explaining every mode letter.