Persisted.nvim is a simple lua plugin for working with sessions in Neovim
Forked from Persistence.nvim as active development had stopped
- Automatically saves the active session under
.local/share/nvim/sessions
on exiting Neovim - Supports sessions across multiple git branches
- Supports autosaving and autoloading of sessions with allowed/ignored directories
- Simple API to save/stop/restore/delete/list the current session(s)
- Custom events which users can hook into for greater integration
- Telescope extension to work with saved sessions
- Neovim >= 0.8.0
Install the plugin with your preferred package manager:
-- Lua
{
"olimorris/persisted.nvim",
config = true
}
-- Lua
use({
"olimorris/persisted.nvim",
config = function()
require("persisted").setup()
end,
})
" Vim Script
Plug 'olimorris/persisted.nvim'
lua << EOF
require("persisted").setup {
-- your configuration comes here
-- or leave it empty to use the default settings
-- refer to the configuration section below
}
EOF
If you wish to use session autoloading alongside a dashboard plugin, it is recommended that you give this plugin a greater loading priority. With Packer the after
config option can be used and in Lazy.nvim, the priority
property.
Ensure that the telescope extension is loaded with:
require("telescope").load_extension("persisted")
The layout can then be customised from within Telescope:
require('telescope').setup({
defaults = {
…
},
extensions = {
persisted = {
layout_config = { width = 0.55, height = 0.55 }
}
}
})
Default commands
The plugin comes with a number of commands:
:SessionToggle
- Determines whether to load, start or stop a session:SessionStart
- Start recording a session. Useful ifautosave = false
:SessionStop
- Stop recording a session:SessionSave
- Save the current session:SessionLoad
- Load the session for the current directory and current branch (ifgit_use_branch = true
):SessionLoadLast
- Load the most recent session:SessionLoadFromFile
- Load a session from a given path:SessionDelete
- Delete the current session
Telescope
The Telescope extension may be opened via :Telescope persisted
.
Once opened, the available keymaps are:
<CR>
- Source the session file<C-d>
- Delete the session file
Statuslines
The plugin sets a global variable, vim.g.persisting
, which is set to true
when a session is started and false
when it is stopped. Also, the plugin offers a PersistedStateChange
event that can be hooked into via an autocmd (see the events/callbacks section).
The plugin comes with the following defaults:
require("persisted").setup({
save_dir = vim.fn.expand(vim.fn.stdpath("data") .. "/sessions/"), -- directory where session files are saved
silent = false, -- silent nvim message when sourcing session file
use_git_branch = false, -- create session files based on the branch of the git enabled repository
autosave = true, -- automatically save session files when exiting Neovim
should_autosave = nil, -- function to determine if a session should be autosaved
autoload = false, -- automatically load the session for the cwd on Neovim startup
on_autoload_no_session = nil, -- function to run when `autoload = true` but there is no session to load
follow_cwd = true, -- change session file name to match current working directory if it changes
allowed_dirs = nil, -- table of dirs that the plugin will auto-save and auto-load from
ignored_dirs = nil, -- table of dirs that are ignored when auto-saving and auto-loading
telescope = { -- options for the telescope extension
reset_prompt_after_deletion = true, -- whether to reset prompt after session deleted
},
})
As the plugin uses Vim's :mksession
command then you may change the vim.o.sessionoptions
value to determine what to write into the session. Please see :h sessionoptions
for more information.
Note: The author uses:
vim.o.sessionoptions = "buffers,curdir,folds,globals,tabpages,winpos,winsize"
The location of the session files may be changed by altering the save_dir
configuration option. For example:
require("persisted").setup({
save_dir = vim.fn.expand(vim.fn.stdpath("data") .. "/sessions/"), -- Resolves to ~/.local/share/nvim/sessions/
})
Note: The plugin may be unable to find existing sessions if the
save_dir
value is changed
One of the plugin's core features is the ability to have multiple session files for a given project, by using git branches. To enable git branching:
require("persisted").setup({
use_git_branch = true,
})
Note: If git branching is enabled on a non git enabled repo, then
main
will be used as the default branch
If you switch branches in a repository, the plugin will try to load a session which corresponds to that branch. If it can't find one, then it will load the session from the main
branch.
By default, the plugin will automatically save a Neovim session to disk when the VimLeavePre
event is triggered. Autosaving can be turned off by:
require("persisted").setup({
autosave = false,
})
Autosaving can be further controlled for certain directories by specifying allowed_dirs
and ignored_dirs
.
There may be occasions when you do not wish to autosave; perhaps when a dashboard or a certain buftype is present. To control this, a callback function, should_autosave
, may be used which should return a boolean value.
require("persisted").setup({
should_autosave = function()
-- do not autosave if the alpha dashboard is the current filetype
if vim.bo.filetype == "alpha" then
return false
end
return true
end,
})
Of course, if you wish to manually save the session when autosaving is disabled, the :SessionSave
command can be used.
Note: If
autosave = false
then theshould_autosave
callback will not be executed.
The plugin can be enabled to automatically load sessions when Neovim is started. Whilst off by default, this can be turned on by:
require("persisted").setup({
autoload = true,
})
You can also provide a function to run when autoload = true
but there is no session to be loaded:
require("persisted").setup({
autoload = true,
on_autoload_no_session = function()
vim.notify("No existing session to load.")
end
})
Autoloading can be further controlled for certain directories by specifying allowed_dirs
and ignored_dirs
.
Note: Autoloading will not occur if a user opens Neovim with arguments. For example:
nvim some_file.rb
There may be a need to change the working directory to quickly access files in other directories without changing the current session's name on save. This behavior can be configured with follow_cwd = false
.
By default, the session name will match the current working directory:
require("persisted").setup({
follow_cwd = true,
})
Note: If
follow_cwd = false
the session name is stored upon loading under the global variablevim.g.persisting_session
. This variable can be manually adjusted if changes to the session name are needed. Alternatively, iffollow_cwd = true
thenvim.g.persisting_session = nil
.
You may specify a table of directories for which the plugin will autosave and/or autoload from. For example:
require("persisted").setup({
allowed_dirs = {
"~/.dotfiles",
"~/Code",
},
})
Specifying ~/Code
will autosave and autoload from that directory as well as all its sub-directories.
Note: If
allowed_dirs
is left at its default value andautosave
and/orautoload
are set totrue
, then the plugin will autoload/autosave from any directory
You may specify a table of directories for which the plugin will never autosave and autoload from. For example:
require("persisted").setup({
ignored_dirs = {
"~/.config",
"~/.local/nvim"
},
})
Specifying ~/.config
will prevent any autosaving and autoloading from that directory as well as all its sub-directories.
The plugin fires events at various points during its lifecycle which users can hook into:
PersistedLoadPre
- For before a session is loadedPersistedLoadPost
- For after a session is loadedPersistedTelescopeLoadPre
- For before a session is loaded via TelescopePersistedTelescopeLoadPost
- For after a session is loaded via TelescopePersistedSavePre
- For before a session is savedPersistedSavePost
- For after a session is savedPersistedDeletePre
- For before a session is deletedPersistedDeletePost
- For after a session is deletedPersistedStateChange
- For when a session is started or stopped
For example, to ensure that the excellent minimap plugin is not saved into a session, an autocmd can be created to hook into the PersistedSavePre
event:
local group = vim.api.nvim_create_augroup("PersistedHooks", {})
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ "User" }, {
pattern = "PersistedSavePre",
group = group,
callback = function()
pcall(vim.cmd, "bw minimap")
end,
})
Session data is also made available to the callbacks:
local group = vim.api.nvim_create_augroup("PersistedHooks", {})
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ "User" }, {
pattern = "PersistedTelescopeLoadPre",
group = group,
callback = function(session)
print(session.data.branch) -- Print the session's branch
end,
})
The session data available differs depending on the events that are hooked into. For non-telescope events, only the session's full path is available (via session.data
). However for telescope events, the branch
, name
, file_path
and dir_path
are available.
The plugin contains an extension for telescope.nvim which allows the user to list all of the saved session files and source them via :Telescope persisted
.