Snippy

A snippets plugin for Neovim 0.5.0+ written in Lua.

Status

The plugin is mostly stable and feature complete as a minimal and simple snippets manager. Also, see the FAQ section.

Features

Uses the built-in extmarks feature
Support for defining multiple snippets in a single file
Support for expanding LSP provided snippets
Full support for the syntax and file format used by SnipMate
No dependencies

Installation

Install using your favorite plugin manager.

Using vim-plug:

Plug 'dcampos/nvim-snippy'

There are no snippets installed by default. You can create your own, or install vim-snippets:

Plug 'honza/vim-snippets'

If you want to use Snippy with nvim-cmp, please install the corresponding integration plugin:

Plug 'dcampos/cmp-snippy'

Usage

Snippy comes with no mappings activated by default, so you need to define some.

For example, to use <Tab> to expand and jump forward, <S-Tab to jump back:

imap <expr> <Tab> snippy#can_expand_or_advance() ? '<Plug>(snippy-expand-or-advance)' : '<Tab>'
imap <expr> <S-Tab> snippy#can_jump(-1) ? '<Plug>(snippy-previous)' : '<S-Tab>'
smap <expr> <Tab> snippy#can_jump(1) ? '<Plug>(snippy-next)' : '<Tab>'
smap <expr> <S-Tab> snippy#can_jump(-1) ? '<Plug>(snippy-previous)' : '<S-Tab>'
xmap <Tab> <Plug>(snippy-cut-text)

When using Lua, you can wrap the above block in a vim.cmd([[...]]) call, or call the snippy.setup() function passing your mapping options:

require('snippy').setup({
    mappings = {
        is = {
            ['<Tab>'] = 'expand_or_advance',
            ['<S-Tab>'] = 'previous',
        },
        nx = {
            ['<leader>x'] = 'cut_text',
        },
    },
})

You can also define separate mappings to expand and jump forward. See :help snippy-usage and also the mapping examples on the Wiki.

Adding snippets

By default every snippets directory in runtimepath will be searched for snippets. Files with the .snippet extension contain a single snippet, while files with the .snippets extension can be used to declare multiple snippets.

A basic lua.snippets file for Lua showing off some of the plugin's features would look like this:

# Comments are possible
snippet fun
	function ${1:name}(${2:params})
		${0:$VISUAL}
	end
snippet upcase
	local ${1:var} = '${1/.*/\U\0/g}'
snippet choices
	print('My favorite language is: ${1|JavaScript,Lua,Rust|}')
snippet date
	Current date is `strftime('%c')`
# Custom tabstop order
snippet repeat
	repeat
		${2:what}
	while ${1:condition}

You can see example snippets by looking at the honza/vim-snippets repository, which, if installed, Snippy will also use automatically as a source of snippets .

See :help snippy-usage-snippets and :help snippy-snippet-syntax for more information.

Expanding LSP snippets

The LSP snippet syntax is almost fully supported. If you use a completion plugin like nvim-cmp, please install the respective integration plugin listed above in the Installation section.

You can also expand LSP snippets present in completion items provided by Neovim's built-in vim.lsp.omnifunc. See :help snippy.complete_done() for details.

Running tests

There are some functional and unit tests available. To run them, use either:

make functionaltest

Or:

make unittest

You need to have vusted installed for the above command to succeed.

Advantages

These are some of the advantages of this plugin when compared with other snippet plugins for Vim/Neovim:

No dependence on any external plugin or library.
Only core Neovim. No need to install Python or any other external language.
Because it uses the built-in extmarks feature, there is no insertion of markers in the text.
No need to edit JSON files by hand. Snippets file format is much simpler and may speed up the process of creating snippets.
No need to defined snippets in Lua or Vimscript code.
Simple and standard snippet syntax.

FAQ

Is UltiSnips's feature X available?

This is so far the most frequently asked question and the answer to it is generally no. UltiSnips is a great snippets manager for those wanting to use advanced snippet features, like Python evaluation, but that comes at a price of being heavyweight and complicated, whereas Snippy strives to be minimal and simple. That said, UltiSnips has some nice features like auto-trigger that ~~may be added~~ has been added to Snippy to improve usability.

See also: issues with label .

Known bugs

There is a bug in Neovim where extmarks are extended to the beginning of the completed item when the complete() function is called and a completion menu is shown, even if the user does not select or confirm anything. See the bug report for more information.

Credits

The snippet parsing code is based on vsnip.

License

MIT license.

talbergs/nvim-snippy