helix-config 🧬

My personal Helix IDE config.

For an introduction to the Helix IDE, please see the Helix website and consider practicing with daily keystroke-efficient drills using Keyglide.

Setup (on Ubuntu)

1. Install C build tools and common Rust dependencies:

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install build-essential curl pkg-config libssl-dev

2. Install the Rust toolchain via Rustup:

   curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

3. Install essential Rust components:

   rustup component add rust-analyzer rustfmt clippy

4. Install LLDB for DAP (in-editor debugging support):

   sudo apt install lldb

   Helix uses lldb-dap (included with LLDB) as its default Rust debug adapter. On Ubuntu the binary is sometimes installed with a version suffix (e.g. lldb-dap-18). If hx --health rust reports the debugger as unavailable, create an unversioned symlink:

   # Replace 18 with the version installed on your system
   sudo ln -s /usr/bin/lldb-dap-18 /usr/local/bin/lldb-dap

5. Install Helix (https://docs.helix-editor.com/package-managers.html#ubuntudebian):

   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:maveonair/helix-editor
   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install helix

6. Copy the editor config from this repo into ~/.config/helix/:

   mkdir -p ~/.config/helix
   cp config.toml ~/.config/helix/config.toml
   cp languages.toml ~/.config/helix/languages.toml
   cp ignore ~/.config/helix/ignore

7. Verify that Helix can see rust-analyzer and all grammars:

   hx --health rust

8. Start Helix and enjoy!

   hx .

Optional productivity tools

• Zellij or tmux — Helix has no built-in terminal, so a terminal multiplexer is strongly recommended for running cargo build/cargo test in a split pane alongside the editor.

  • cargo install --locked zellij
    rustup update
    zellij

• Alacritty — a terminal with support for copy-pasting in a compatible way with Zellij. i.e. run alacritty instead of Bash.

  • cargo install alacritty

• cargo-nextest — A faster, more ergonomic test runner (cargo install cargo-nextest).

  • cargo binstall cargo-nextest --secure

  • And if you have a library crate:

    cargo nextest run && cargo test --doc