binvim

A Vim-grammar TUI editor written in Rust. Tree-sitter highlighting, multi-server LSP fan-out with rename / code-actions / signature-help / find-references / document & workspace symbols, fuzzy pickers, persistent undo, code folding, surround operations, smart-indent, system-clipboard yank, horizontal scrolling, and a Catppuccin Mocha palette — all in one binary, no plugins.

Features

Editor

• Modal editing — normal / insert / visual (charwise, linewise, blockwise) with operators, text objects, marks, registers, dot-repeat, undo/redo, and macros.
• Surround operations — ds<char> strips the surrounding pair, cs<old><new> swaps it, visual S<char> wraps the selection. Pair chars: (/)/b, [/], {/}/B, <, ", ', `.
• Numeric Ctrl-A / Ctrl-X — increment / decrement the next number on the current line. Recognises decimal, 0x…, 0b…, 0o…, with optional leading -. Preserves leading zeros.
• Smart indent on Enter — copies the current line's leading whitespace and adds one indent unit after { [ ( : => ->. Pressing Enter inside an auto-paired {|} splits the pair into three lines with the cursor on the indented middle.
• HTML tag auto-completion — typing > after <div writes <div>|</div>. Self-closing tags, void elements, generics (Array<T>), comments and declarations all skipped. Active in .html, .cshtml, .razor, .jsx, .tsx, .vue, .svelte, .astro, .xml, .md.
• Bracket and HTML-tag matching — when the cursor is on (or just past) a bracket or anywhere inside an HTML tag, the matching partner highlights with a Surface2 background + bold. Works through arbitrary nesting.
• Code folding — indent-based folds, toggled with za/zo/zc, with zR/zM to open/close all. Folded blocks render as ⏷ N lines.
• Persistent undo — undo history is serialised per file under ~/.cache/binvim/undo/<hash>.json on save and reloaded on the next session, keyed by content hash so external edits invalidate stale history.
• System-clipboard yank — y, yy, Y, :y, visual yank, and the implicit yank on d/c/x mirror to the OS clipboard via arboard whenever they target the unnamed register. Named registers ("ay) stay local.
• Yank flash — yanked range flashes a Catppuccin Peach background for 200ms so you see what's been picked up.
• Horizontal scrolling — long lines scroll automatically as the cursor moves past the edge; trackpad / mouse-wheel horizontal events scroll without moving the cursor; Vim-style zh / zl (1 col) and zH / zL (half-width) work too.
• Whitespace markers — every space, tab, non-breaking space, and end-of-line surface as a muted glyph (·, →, ⎵, ¬). Configurable.
• Format on save — biome for JS / TS / JSX / TSX / JSON / JSONC. .editorconfig directives applied on save (final newline, trailing whitespace).
• Auto-reload on disk change — when an open file changes externally and the buffer isn't dirty, binvim notices via mtime poll and reloads with a status note.
• Recents in the file picker — most-recently-opened files surface at the top of the file picker on an empty query, persisted at ~/.cache/binvim/recents.

Tree-sitter highlighting

Rust, TypeScript / TSX, JavaScript, JSON, Go, HTML, CSS, Markdown, C#. Pattern-priority resolution so (method_declaration name: (identifier) @function) deterministically beats the catch-all (identifier) @variable.

LSP

Per-language servers with initializationOptions, project-root detection, and a debounced didChange (50ms burst window) so rapid typing doesn't flood the server.

Capability	Binding	Notes
Completion	auto + Ctrl-N/Ctrl-P	Multi-server fan-out — completion items from primary plus auxiliary servers (e.g. Tailwind alongside tsserver) are merged in the popup.
Hover	K
Goto-definition	gd
Find references	gr	Results open in a fuzzy picker; Enter jumps.
Document symbols	<space>o	File outline. Hierarchy preserved with › separators.
Workspace symbols	<space>S	Live server-side filter as you type.
Signature help	auto on ( / ,	Parameter being typed gets a Catppuccin Yellow highlight inside the popup.
Code actions	<leader>a	Picks render with kind tag. Supports both WorkspaceEdit and command-shaped actions; round-trips workspace/applyEdit from the server.
Rename	<leader>r	Prompt pre-fills the current word; submission applies the WorkspaceEdit across every affected file.
Diagnostics	inline + sign column	Undercurl on the offending range, severity glyph in the gutter.

Multi-server fan-out — primary servers (rust-analyzer, tsserver, gopls, biome, OmniSharp, csharp-ls, …) plus auxiliaries layered on top. Tailwind class-name completion attaches alongside CSS / HTML / JSX / TSX / JS / TS / Astro / Vue / Svelte / Razor whenever Tailwind is detected (v3 tailwind.config.* or v4 CSS-first via a tailwindcss dependency in package.json). csharp-ls is layered onto Razor files so @code{} blocks get C# completion even without a dedicated Razor server.

Pickers

Fuzzy file picker, buffer switcher, and live grep — all opened from leader (space).

Catppuccin Mocha defaults

Colours overridable via ~/.config/binvim/config.toml.

Build

cargo build --release

The binary lands at target/release/binvim.

Run

binvim [path]

If path is omitted, binvim opens on the start page. Press : for a command (:e <path>, :q) or <space> to open the file picker.

Leader bindings

Keys	Action
<space>	File picker
<space>b	Buffer picker
<space>g	Live grep
<space>e	Yazi file manager
<space>o	Document symbols
<space>S	Workspace symbols
<space>a	Code actions
<space>r	Rename

Ex commands

Beyond the standard :w, :q, :e <path>, :bd, :s/pat/repl/g, etc.:

Command	Description
:health	Open a scratch buffer summarising version, CPU / RAM share, buffers, attached LSPs (with binary path + running flag), and Tailwind config detection. :checkhealth works too.
:fmt / :format	Run the configured formatter on the active buffer.
:noh	Clear the search highlight.

External tools

binvim spawns these on demand. Each is optional — when a binary isn't on $PATH (or in a relevant node_modules/.bin/) the editor just skips that capability.

Tool	Purpose	Install
rust-analyzer	Rust LSP	rustup component add rust-analyzer
typescript-language-server	JS / TS / JSX / TSX LSP	npm i -g typescript-language-server typescript
gopls	Go LSP	go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls@latest
vscode-css-language-server	CSS / SCSS / Less LSP	npm i -g vscode-langservers-extracted
vscode-html-language-server	HTML LSP	npm i -g vscode-langservers-extracted
tailwindcss-language-server	Tailwind class-name completion	npm i -g @tailwindcss/language-server (the unscoped npm package is an empty stub — use the scoped one)
astro-ls	Astro LSP	npm i -g @astrojs/language-server
csharp-ls	C# LSP (Roslyn-based, preferred)	dotnet tool install --global csharp-ls
OmniSharp	Razor / .cshtml IntelliSense (full)	binvim probes ~/.local/bin/omnisharp/OmniSharp plus $PATH. Drop the official tarball there.
rzls	Razor language server	community tool — install if you have it; binvim auto-detects
biome (project-local)	JSON LSP + JS / TS / JSON formatter	npm i -D @biomejs/biome in the project
rg	Live grep backend	brew install ripgrep
yazi	<space>e file manager	brew install yazi

binvim auto-discovers project-local binaries by walking up to the closest node_modules/.bin/, so a devDependency in your project takes precedence over a global install.

Configuration

Optional config file at ~/.config/binvim/config.toml:

schema_version = 1

[colors]
keyword = "#cba6f7"
"keyword.return" = "Magenta"
string = "#a6e3a1"

[start_page]
lines = [
    "  hello, world  ",
    "  press : to start ",
]

[whitespace]
show = true   # space=`·`, tab=`→ `, nbsp=`⎵`, eol=`¬`. On by default.

[colors] — values may be hex (#rrggbb) or a named crossterm colour. Capture names follow tree-sitter conventions (keyword, string, function, type, …); a dotted suffix matches more specifically before falling back to the head (keyword.return overrides keyword).

[start_page] — lines overrides the baked-in ASCII logo shown when binvim is launched with no path. Each entry renders on its own row, horizontally centered; the block as a whole is vertically centered. Omit it (or leave it empty) to keep the default logo.

[whitespace] — show = true (the default) renders every space as ·, every tab as → plus space-fill to the tab width, every non-breaking space (U+00A0) as ⎵, and the end-of-line as ¬. All in the muted overlay colour. Set show = false to disable.

A missing or malformed config is ignored — the baked-in Catppuccin Mocha palette is used.

Licence

Source-available, not open source. Copyright (c) 2026 B. Gunnarsson — see LICENSE for the full text. In short: you may read the source, run it locally, modify your own copy, and submit pull requests upstream. You may not redistribute, publicly fork, or run it as a hosted service. For anything outside that scope, contact the licensor on Twitter/X at @bgunnarssonis.

Project layout

src/
  app.rs           event loop, buffer/state management, ex-command dispatch
  buffer.rs        rope-backed text buffer
  command.rs       ex-command (`:`) parser
  config.rs        config loader and colour resolution
  cursor.rs        cursor + visual selection model
  editorconfig.rs  .editorconfig parser + on-save transforms
  format.rs        formatter dispatch (biome integration)
  lang.rs          tree-sitter language detection and highlight cache
  lsp.rs           LSP client (diagnostics, hover, completion, goto, multi-server fan-out)
  mode.rs          modes and operators
  motion.rs        motions
  parser.rs        keystroke → action parser
  picker.rs        fuzzy pickers
  render.rs        terminal rendering
  text_object.rs   text objects (`iw`, `i"`, `ap`, …)
  undo.rs          undo/redo history (in-memory + on-disk persistence)