Helix

Helix 25.07, painted in SilkCircuit glow, with the Space leader laid out the way AstroNvim taught your hands

Overview

Helix is a modal editor with no plugin system: tree-sitter, LSP, pickers, multiple cursors and a file explorer are built in, and the whole setup is two TOML files. It is Kakoune-shaped rather than Vim-shaped, so you select first and act second. That model is the reason to try it, and the config here leaves it alone. What it does carry over from the Neovim setup is the muscle memory that has nothing to do with motions: the Space groups, Ctrl-s, ]b and [b, and Esc clearing your selection.

What you get:

• The same language servers and formatters as Neovim: Rust, Python (ruff and ty), TypeScript (vtsls), HTML, CSS, Tailwind, JSON, YAML, TOML, Markdown, Bash, Lua and Docker, with prettier, stylua and shfmt for formatting
• One master switch for format-on-save, off by default like the Neovim config, toggled with Space u F
• Inlay hints, inline diagnostics on the cursor line, a bufferline when more than one file is open, a statusline that shows the git branch
• lazygit in a tmux popup, one-line git blame, and a Space a y that copies a file:line reference for pasting at an agent

Structure

helix/
├── config.toml      # Editor options and keymap (→ ~/.config/helix/config.toml)
├── languages.toml   # Language servers and formatters (→ ~/.config/helix/languages.toml)
└── README.md
sh/helix.sh          # Puts Mason's binaries on PATH so Helix finds the servers

The SilkCircuit installer drops its five Helix themes into ~/.config/helix/themes/, which is why the two files are linked individually rather than the directory. Pick another variant any time with :theme silkcircuit-neon (also vibrant, soft and dawn); the tracked default is glow.

Quick start

hx .                # File explorer at the project root
hx file.py          # Open a file

Space f f           # Find files
Space f w           # Grep the project
Space f c           # Grep the word under the cursor
Space e             # File explorer
Space x x           # Diagnostics for this buffer
Space l f           # Format buffer
Space g g           # lazygit (tmux popup)
Space ?             # Command palette, searchable by description
:config-reload      # After editing config.toml
hx --health python  # What a language resolved to

Coming from Neovim

The unlearning is smaller than it looks. Everything that is not in this table works the way you expect.

Habit	Helix
dw, ciw, yap	Select first, then act: wd, miwc, mapy. w, e, b and friends leave a selection behind
v then move	You are always selecting. v toggles select mode, where motions extend instead of replace
x	Selects the whole line (repeat to grow). d deletes what is selected
%	Selects the whole file. mm jumps to the matching bracket
Ctrl-r	U redoes, and Ctrl-r is mapped to it too
K for hover	Space k (or Space l h). K keeps selections matching a regex, which you will want
. repeat	Repeats the last insert. Multiple cursors cover most of what . did: s splits a selection
	into one cursor per regex match, C copies the cursor down, , collapses back to one
:%s/a/b/g	% to select all, s to pick the matches, then c and type. Live, with every match visible
f, t	Not confined to the line
:terminal, lazygit	No terminal. Space g g opens lazygit in a tmux popup; anywhere else Ctrl-z drops you to the
	shell and fg brings Helix back
:Mason, :Lazy	Nothing to manage. hx --health reports what each language found on PATH
which-key	Press Space and wait; the infobox lists the group. Same for g, m, z, Ctrl-w
q:, :help	Space ? searches every command by description
gd, gr, gi, gy	Same keys. gd definition, gr references, gi implementation, gy type definition
]d, [d, ]g, [g	Same keys: diagnostics and git hunks. Also ]f function, ]t type, ]a argument, ]p paragraph

Keybindings

Notation: Space is the leader, C-x is Ctrl. Mode is normal unless a table says otherwise. Mappings marked (ours) come from helix/config.toml; the rest are Helix defaults kept because they already matched.

Files and windows

Key	Action
Space w	Save (ours)
Space q / Space Q	Close view / close all views (ours)
Space n	New scratch buffer (ours)
Space c / Space C	Close buffer / force close (ours)
Space e / Space E	File explorer at workspace root / at this file's directory
Space | / Space \\	Vertical / horizontal split (ours)
C-h C-j C-k C-l	Move between splits (ours)
C-w	Window mode: v s split, q close, o only, H J K L swap
C-s	Save, in normal and insert mode (ours)
C-q	Quit everything, discarding changes (ours, same as AstroNvim)
]b / [b	Next / previous buffer (ours)
Esc	Collapse to one cursor, drop extra selections (ours)

Find (Space f)

Key	Action
Space f f	Files in the workspace
Space f F	Files under the current directory
Space f w	Grep the workspace, live
Space f c	Grep the word under the cursor
Space f b	Buffers
Space f s	Symbols in this file
Space f S	Symbols in the workspace
Space f j	Jumplist
Space f g	Files changed in git
Space '	Reopen the last picker

Buffers (Space b)

Key	Action
Space b b	Buffer picker
Space b n / Space b p	Next / previous buffer
Space b d	Close this buffer
Space b c	Close every other buffer
Space b C	Close all buffers

Language tools (Space l)

Key	Action
Space l a	Code action
Space l r / Space r	Rename symbol
Space l h / Space k	Hover documentation
Space l f	Format buffer
Space l s / Space l G	Document / workspace symbols
Space l d / Space l D	Document / workspace diagnostics
Space l R	References
Space l i / Space l y	Implementation / type definition
Space l l	Restart the language servers
Space l L	Open the Helix log
Space x x / Space x X	Diagnostics picker, buffer / workspace

Git (Space g)

Key	Action
Space g g	lazygit in a tmux popup
Space g f	lazygit filtered to this file's history
Space g s	Picker of files changed in the working tree
Space g b	Blame the current line: commit, author, age and subject
]g / [g	Next / previous hunk

Outside tmux, Space g g prints a reminder instead of failing quietly: Ctrl-z, run lazygit, fg.

Agents (Space a)

Key	Action
Space a y	Copy path:line for the cursor, or path:start-end for a multi-line selection, to the system clipboard

Works in normal and select mode. It uses pbcopy, wl-copy or xclip, whichever the box has.

Toggles (Space u)

Key	Toggles
Space u n	Relative / absolute line numbers
Space u w	Soft wrap
Space u i	Inlay hints
Space u g	Indent guides
Space u h	Visible whitespace
Space u c	Cursor line highlight
Space u b	Bufferline
Space u m	Mouse
Space u d	Inline and end-of-line diagnostics
Space u F	Format on save, for every language at once

Kept from Helix

Space y, Space p, Space P and Space R move text through the system clipboard. Space j is the jumplist, Space h selects every reference to the symbol under the cursor, Space G is the debugger, Space / comments the selection (matching AstroNvim, and replacing Helix's Space c). Two defaults moved: Space a is the agents group, so code actions are Space l a, and Space w saves, so window mode is Ctrl-w.

Statusline and bufferline

The bar follows the heirline layout from Neovim: a colored mode block on the left (NORMAL, INSERT and SELECT, each with a Nerd Font glyph, the LSP spinner beside it), then the git branch, the file name and its modified or read-only state. The right side carries diagnostics for the buffer and the workspace as colored dots, the selection count and length, the active register, position and percentage, and the file type. Sections sit on the SilkCircuit highlight surface with cyan separators; the mode block takes purple, pink or cyan for normal, insert or select, the same hues heirline uses. Those colors live in the SilkCircuit Helix theme, generated from the helix extra in that repo, because Helix draws the bar from ui.statusline scopes rather than from config.

With more than one buffer open the bufferline appears on top, active buffer in bold purple on the editor background, the rest muted on the section surface, matching the heirline tabline.

Helix has no custom statusline components, so a few heirline pieces have no equivalent: git added, changed and removed counts, attached server names and the scrollbar. The spinner covers server activity and Space l L opens the log.

Language servers

Everything below resolves to the binaries Mason installed for Neovim under ~/.local/share/nvim/mason/bin, which sh/helix.sh appends to PATH. Nothing gets installed twice, and a box that has never run Neovim shows the gaps in hx --health.

Language	Server(s)	Formatter
Rust	rust-analyzer, with clippy as the check command	LSP
Python	ty, ruff	LSP
TypeScript, JavaScript	vtsls (tsx and jsx also get tailwindcss-ls)	prettier
HTML, CSS, SCSS	vscode html and css servers, tailwindcss-ls	prettier
JSON, YAML, Markdown	vscode-json-language-server, yaml-language-server, marksman	prettier
TOML	taplo	LSP
Lua	lua-language-server	stylua
Bash	bash-language-server	shfmt, honoring .editorconfig
Dockerfile, Compose	docker-language-server (compose adds yaml-language-server)	none

Formatting is off on save until you flip Space u F, matching the Neovim config. Space l f formats on demand. Helix has no separate linter hook, so the markdownlint and yamllint passes that nvim-lint runs in Neovim stay in make lint.

Gotchas

• hx --health warns that ~/.config/helix/runtime does not exist. That is where a source build keeps grammars; the Homebrew install ships them elsewhere and the warning is noise.
• Helix expands the first word of a :sh command only when the whole word is an expansion, so s=%{cursor_line} stays literal there. Space a y goes through set -- for exactly that reason.
• git blame -l prefixes boundary commits with ^; Space g b uses --porcelain to get a clean hash.
• Space f c deliberately does not press Enter: global search runs as you type, and Enter would jump to the first match instead of leaving the picker open.
• Run make install after pulling: it links the two files and lets the SilkCircuit installer lay down the themes.