A Basic Lua Plugin

Quick Start

There are a few different files involved in setting up a plugin, and a specific directory structure. I like to start from a working plugin and start adding my code.

bash \
  <(curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jacobsimpson/nvim-example-lua-plugin/master/install.sh) \
  mynewplugin

Once that is done, you have a new plugin ready to go. It doesn’t do anything except print some messages, but it is enough to get you started.

To use the new plugin, add it to your runtimepath when starting Neovim.

nvim --cmd "set rtp+=./mynewplugin"

More Detail

The vim file in the plugin directory will be executed when vim starts. The lua require(...) statements in the vim files will load Lua files.

In order to satisfy the require call, the Lua interpreter that is part of Neovim will look in the lua subdirectory of the directories on the runtimepath for the arguments specified in the call to require. In the example above, where ./mynewplugin was added to the runtimepath, require("mynewplugin") would cause the Lua interpreter to look in ./mynewplugin/lua for a mynewplugin directory.

If require points to a directory, the interpreter will load the init.lua file in that directory. If the require points to a file, the interpreter will append a .lua extension, and load the file.

TODO: There have been a lot of Neovim improvements, this example could probably use some updates. Also, if the luamodule was named myluamodule it would be just a little more obvious that the directory name/module name can be changed.