mason-lspconfig-jit-installation.nvim

This plugin provides "just in time" installation of language servers. This is just a fancy way of saying "language servers are not installed until you are ready to use them".

jit-installer.mov

Installation and setup

The plugin expects you to provide a specific a list of servers you would like to install when necessary. If you do not provide this list, initialization will no-op.

Servers should be specified using the names in the lspconfig configurations file. Alternatively, the server mappings in mason-lspconfig.nvim can be used as a source. The valid names are the keys in the lspconfig_to_package table.

I use lazy.nvim, so that is the example I'm adding. I will happily accept pull requests adding more examples.

lazy.nvim

{
  "brandoncc/mason-lspconfig-jit-installation.nvim",
  dependencies = {
    "williamboman/mason.nvim",
    "williamboman/mason-lspconfig.nvim",
    "neovim/nvim-lspconfig",
  },
  opts = {
    servers = {
      "lua_ls",
    },
  },
}

Motivation

mason-lspconfig provides settings called ensure_installed and automatic_installation. Neither of these solve my problem, which is that I don't want to install language servers until I actually need them. I work on a lot of development servers that are spun up and thrown away quickly, so installing a bunch of language servers that will not be used is a waste of time. Conversely, removing my ensure_installed setting causes me to forget to install the language servers that I do need.

TODO

Start newly-installed servers automatically after installation