setup-vim

name	setup-vim
description	Install Neovim with kickstart.nvim (the community-maintained starter config) — full IDE setup with LSP, Telescope, Treesitter, autocompletion. Optional classic Vim fallback with vim-plug. Use this skill when the user mentions setting up vim, neovim, nvim, configuring vim, vim setup, editor setup, or wants Neovim on a new machine.
allowed-tools	["Bash","Read","Write","Edit"]

Setup Vim / Neovim

Install Neovim and deploy kickstart.nvim as the default config — the official starting-point recommended by the Neovim community. Single-file init.lua you can read, understand, and customize.

What gets installed

Neovim (default)

• Neovim via Homebrew
• ripgrep + fd (used by Telescope and treesitter for fast search)
• kickstart.nvim cloned to ~/.config/nvim/ (.git removed so it's yours to edit)

kickstart.nvim ships with:

• LSP setup (Mason for managing language servers)
• Treesitter (syntax + indentation)
• Telescope (fuzzy finder)
• nvim-cmp (completion)
• which-key (keybinding hints)
• gitsigns (git change indicators)
• A clean colorscheme (tokyonight)

All in one readable init.lua file.

Vim (--vim-only fallback)

• vim-plug plugin manager (official curl install)
• Bundled vimrc with molokai theme, airline, polyglot

Quick setup

bash ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/setup-vim.sh

Modes:

Flag	Behavior
(default)	Install Neovim + kickstart.nvim
--neovim-only	Same as default
--vim-only	Install classic Vim with vim-plug only

The script backs up any existing ~/.config/nvim/ or ~/.vimrc before overwriting.

After install

Open nvim once — lazy.nvim auto-installs all plugins. To customize:

$EDITOR ~/.config/nvim/init.lua

The kickstart.nvim docs walk you through every section:

• https://github.com/nvim-lua/kickstart.nvim

Why kickstart.nvim and not LazyVim/NvChad/...

• Single file — read the whole config in one sitting
• No abstractions — what you see is what runs
• Officially blessed by the neovim core team
• Easy to delete — if you outgrow it, you understand exactly what to keep

LazyVim / NvChad are great but opinionated and harder to debug if something breaks.

Switching to a different distribution

rm -rf ~/.config/nvim
git clone https://github.com/LazyVim/starter ~/.config/nvim       # LazyVim
# or:
git clone https://github.com/NvChad/starter ~/.config/nvim        # NvChad
nvim   # auto-bootstraps