neovim-ink

An embeddable Neovim editor component for Ink (React for the terminal). Use it as a standalone CLI or embed a full Neovim instance inside your own Ink-based TUI app.

Note: The code in this repository was entirely written by AI (Claude).

Features

• Full Neovim UI via nvim --embed and msgpack-rpc (ext_linegrid protocol)
• 24-bit RGB color, cursor shapes (block/vertical/horizontal), highlight attributes
• Embeddable <NeovimEditor> React component with configurable dimensions and chrome
• Standalone CLI with --size WxH windowed mode (blinking border, scrolling ASCII cats)
• Terminal resize handling
• TypeScript, fully typed

Install

npm install neovim-ink

Requires nvim on your PATH.

CLI usage

# Fullscreen
npx neovim-ink

# Open a file
npx neovim-ink README.md

# Fixed-size window, centered on screen
npx neovim-ink --size 80x24

# Both
npx neovim-ink --size 100x30 src/index.tsx

Library usage

import React from "react";
import { render, Box, Text } from "ink";
import { NeovimEditor } from "neovim-ink";

function App() {
  return (
    <Box flexDirection="column" width={80} height={24}>
      <Box height={1}>
        <Text bold>My TUI App</Text>
      </Box>
      <NeovimEditor
        width={80}
        height={22}
        config={{
          file: "README.md",
          showChrome: false,
          nvimArgs: ["--clean"],
        }}
      />
      <Box height={1}>
        <Text dimColor>:q to close editor</Text>
      </Box>
    </Box>
  );
}

render(<App />);

API

<NeovimEditor>

| Prop | Type | Description | |------|------|-------------| | width | number | Editor width in columns (required) | | height | number | Editor height in rows, including chrome bar (required) | | config | NeovimInkConfig | Configuration object (optional) |

NeovimInkConfig

| Field | Type | Default | Description | |-------|------|---------|-------------| | file | string | — | File to open in the initial buffer | | size | {width, height} | — | Fixed editor size (CLI uses this for centering) | | nvimArgs | string[] | ["--clean"] | Args passed to nvim --embed | | showChrome | boolean | true | Show the bottom status bar | | chromeLabel | string | " neovim-ink " | Right-side label in the chrome bar | | onExit | () => void | — | Called when the Neovim process exits |

useNeovim(width, height, config?)

Lower-level hook for direct access to the Neovim screen buffer and client. Returns { screen, client, sendInput, resize, frameCount }.

License

MIT