The init.lua file

Neovim, like a lot of other linux/unix programs, is configured through a user’s dotfiles.

You can create dotfiles which change the default settings in Neovim, initialize plugins, set colorschemes, and more.

When you open up Neovim, it will look for these dotfiles to load your Neovim configuration.

One of the most important files it will look for is the init.lua file.

Create an init.lua file

On startup, Neovim looks for an init.lua file in your config directory (~/.config/nvim).

If you don’t already have one, create the directory with the following command:

mkdir ~/.config/nvim

And from your home directory, enter it with:

cd .config/nvim

From here, run touch init.lua to create your initial configuration file.

Tip

You can learn more about how this works by opening Neovim and typing :h lua-guide, and scrolling to lua-guide-config.

Testing Your Initial Configuration File

Open up your new init.lua file with nvim init.lua.

Enter insert mode with I and type the follwing:

print("Hello World!")

Then go back to normal mode with Esc, and type :wq to save and quit the file.

Tip

You could also use :luafile % to source the current buffer, but we’ll keep it simple for now.

Re-open the file with nvim init.lua, and you should see “Hello World!” at the bottom of your terminal. 🎉