git clone https://github.com/neovim/neovimcd neovimgit checkout stable.make CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfoCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX. See also ../install.gmake instead of make.sudo make install/usr/localsudo make install, you can try cd build && cpack -G DEB && sudo dpkg -i nvim-linux-<arch>.deb (with <arch> either x86_64 or arm64) to build DEB-package and install it. This helps ensure clean removal of installed files. Note: This is an unsupported, “best-effort” feature of the Nvim build.Notes:
make will download and build all the needed dependencies and put the nvim executable in build/bin..deps/. See the FAQ if you have issues.nvim executable without installing it by running VIMRUNTIME=runtime ./build/bin/nvim.CCACHE_DISABLE=true make.See test/README.md.
First make sure you installed the build prerequisites. Now that you have the dependencies, you can try other build targets explained below.
The build type determines the level of used compiler optimizations and debug information:
Release: Full compiler optimizations and no debug information. Expect the best performance from this build type. Often used by package maintainers.Debug: Full debug information; few optimizations. Use this for development to get meaningful output from debuggers like GDB or LLDB. This is the default if CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE is not specified.RelWithDebInfo (“Release With Debug Info”): Enables many optimizations and adds enough debug info so that when Neovim ever crashes, you can still get a backtrace.So, for a release build, just use:
make CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
(Do not add a -j flag if ninja is installed! The build will be in parallel automatically.)
Afterwards, the nvim executable can be found in build/bin. To verify the build type after compilation, run:
./build/bin/nvim --version | grep ^Build
To install the executable to a certain location, use:
make CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/local/nvim install
CMake, our main build system, caches a lot of things in build/CMakeCache.txt. If you ever want to change CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE or CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX, run rm -rf build first. This is also required when rebuilding after a Git commit adds or removes files (including from runtime) — when in doubt, run make distclean (which is basically a shortcut for rm -rf build .deps).
By default (USE_BUNDLED=1), Neovim downloads and statically links its needed dependencies. In order to be able to use a debugger on these libraries, you might want to compile them with debug information as well:
make distclean
make deps
MSVC (Visual Studio) is the recommended way to build on Windows. These steps were confirmed as of 2023.
nvim.exe (bin\nvim.exe) target and hit F5.x64-{Debug,Release} before you switched the configuration to x86-Release.ntdll, you can ignore it and continue.uv.dll not found, try the nvim.exe (Install) target. Then switch back to nvim.exe (bin\nvim.exe).To build from the command line (i.e. invoke the cmake commands yourself),
Import-VisualStudioVars in PowerShell from this PowerShell moduleVsDevCmd.bat in Command PromptVsDevCmd.bat -arch=x64
luarocks finds the Visual Studio installation, and doesn’t fall back to MinGW with errors like:'mingw32-gcc' is not recognized as an internal or external command
cmake -S cmake.deps -B .deps -G Ninja -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build .deps --config Release
cmake -B build -G Ninja -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --config Release
--config Release if you want a debug build.-G Ninja to use the “Visual Studio” generator.Since https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/36417 , building on Cygwin may be as easy as:
make && make install
If that fails, an alternative is:
cygport repo contains Cygport files (e.g. APKBUILD, PKGBUILD) for all the dependencies not available in the Cygwin distribution, and describes any special commands or arguments needed to build. The Cygport definitions also try to describe the required dependencies for each one. Unless custom commands are provided, Cygport just calls autogen/cmake, make, make install, etc. in a clean and consistent way.libuv should require slightly less patching. Some SSP stuff changed in Cygwin 2.10.0, so that might change things too when building Neovim.cmake -S cmake.deps -B .deps -G Ninja -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DUSE_BUNDLED=OFF -DUSE_BUNDLED_TS=ON
cmake --build .deps
cmake -B build -G Ninja -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build build
From the MSYS2 shell, install these packages:
pacman -S \
mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gcc \
mingw-w64-x86_64-{cmake,make,ninja,diffutils}
From the Windows Command Prompt (cmd.exe), set up the PATH and build.
set PATH=c:\msys64\ucrt64\bin;c:\msys64\usr\bin;%PATH%
You have two options:
cmake and Ninja generator:cmake -S cmake.deps -B .deps -G Ninja -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build .deps
cmake -B build -G Ninja -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build build
ninja install due to permission restriction, you can install neovim in a directory you have write access to.cmake -S cmake.deps -B .deps -G Ninja -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build .deps
cmake -B build -G Ninja -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=C:\nvim -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build build
mingw32-make:mingw32-make deps
mingw32-make CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
:: Or you can do the previous command specifying a custom prefix
:: (Default is C:\Program Files (x86)\nvim)
:: mingw32-make CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=C:\nvim
mingw32-make install
Build Ubuntu/Debian linux binary on WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).
# Install build prerequisites
sudo apt-get install ninja-build gettext cmake build-essential
# Build the linux binary in WSL
make CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
# Install the linux binary in WSL (with `<arch>` either `x86_64` or `arm64`)
cd build && cpack -G DEB && sudo dpkg -i nvim-linux-<arch>.deb
# Verify the installation
nvim --version && which nvim # should be debug build in /usr/bin/nvim
Note: If you encounter linker errors or segfaults during the build, Windows libraries in your PATH may be interfering. Use a clean PATH to avoid conflicts:
PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin" make CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
Translations are turned off by default. Enable by building Nvim with the CMake flag ENABLE_TRANSLATIONS=ON.
Doing this will create .mo files in build/src/nvim/po. Example:
make CMAKE_EXTRA_FLAGS="-DENABLE_TRANSLATIONS=ON"
msgfmt: command not found, you need to install gettext. On most systems, the package is just called gettext.To check the translations for $LANG, run make -C build check-po-$LANG. Examples:
cmake --build build --target check-po-de
cmake --build build --target check-po-pt_BR
check-po-$LANG generates a detailed report in ./build/src/nvim/po/check-${LANG}.log. (The report is generated by nvim, not by msgfmt.)To update the src/nvim/po/$LANG.po file with the latest strings, run the following:
cmake --build build --target update-po-$LANG
src/nvim/po/cleanup.vim after updating.To see the chain of includes, use the -H option (#918):
echo '#include "./src/nvim/buffer.h"' | \
> clang -I.deps/usr/include -Isrc -std=c99 -P -E -H - 2>&1 >/dev/null | \
> grep -v /usr/
grep -v /usr/ is used to filter out system header files.-save-temps can be added as well to see expanded macros or commented assembly.You can customize the build process locally by creating a local.mk, which is referenced at the top of the main Makefile. It’s listed in .gitignore, so it can be used across branches. A new target in local.mk overrides the default make-target.
Here’s a sample local.mk which adds a target to force a rebuild but does not override the default-target:
all:
rebuild:
rm -rf build
make
Reference the Debian package (or alternatively, the Homebrew formula) for the precise list of dependencies/versions.
To build the bundled dependencies using CMake:
cmake -S cmake.deps -B .deps -G Ninja -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build .deps
By default the libraries and headers are placed in .deps/usr. Now you can build Neovim:
cmake -B build -G Ninja -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build build
cmake -B build -G Ninja -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build build
ninja):cmake -S cmake.deps -B .deps -G Ninja -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DUSE_BUNDLED=OFF -DUSE_BUNDLED_TS=ON
cmake --build .deps
cmake -B build -G Ninja -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build build
make, ninja, or whatever build tool you told CMake to generate.ninja is strongly recommended.parser/ runtime directory (e.g. /usr/share/nvim/runtime/parser/).On systems with old or missing libraries, without network access, you may want to build with bundled dependencies. This is supported as follows.
.deps in a form that the build will work with:.deps/build/src/.
(https://github.com/neovim/deps/tree/master/src is an auto-updated, “cleaned up”, snapshot of .deps/build/src/).make deps to generate .deps/, then clean it up using these commands..deps to the isolated machine (without network access).USE_EXISTING_SRC_DIR enabled, on the isolated machine:make deps DEPS_CMAKE_FLAGS=-DUSE_EXISTING_SRC_DIR=ON
make
Unibilium is the only dependency which is licensed under LGPLv3 (there are no GPLv3-only dependencies). This library is used for loading the terminfo database at runtime, and can be disabled if the internal definitions for common terminals are good enough. To avoid this dependency, build with support for loading custom terminfo at runtime, use
make CMAKE_EXTRA_FLAGS="-DENABLE_UNIBILIUM=0" DEPS_CMAKE_FLAGS="-DUSE_BUNDLED_UNIBILIUM=0"
To confirm at runtime that unibilium was not included, check has('terminfo') == 1.
Example of building with specific bundled and non-bundled dependencies:
make DEPS_CMAKE_FLAGS="-DUSE_BUNDLED=OFF -DUSE_BUNDLED_LUV=ON -DUSE_BUNDLED_TS=ON -DUSE_BUNDLED_LIBUV=ON"
STATIC_BUILD variable: make CMAKE_EXTRA_FLAGS="-DSTATIC_BUILD=1"In case you are not using Alpine Linux you can use a container to do the build the binary:
podman run \
--rm \
-it \
-v "$PWD:/workdir" \
-w /workdir \
alpine:latest \
sh -c 'apk add build-base cmake coreutils curl gettext-tiny-dev git && make CMAKE_EXTRA_FLAGS="-DSTATIC_BUILD=1"'
The resulting binary in build/bin/nvim will have all the dependencies statically linked:
build/bin/nvim: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, BuildID[sha1]=b93fa8e678d508ac0a76a2e3da20b119105f1b2d, with debug_info, not stripped
General requirements (see #1469):
cmake binary is in your $PATH so the the Nvim build will find it.Platform-specific requirements are listed below.
sudo apt-get install ninja-build gettext cmake curl build-essential git
sudo dnf -y install ninja-build cmake gcc make gettext curl glibc-gconv-extra git
sudo zypper install ninja cmake gcc-c++ gettext-tools curl git
sudo pacman -S base-devel cmake ninja curl git
apk add build-base cmake coreutils curl gettext-tiny-dev git
xbps-install base-devel cmake curl git
Starting from NixOS 18.03, the Neovim binary resides in the neovim-unwrapped Nix package (the neovim package being just a wrapper to setup runtime options like Ruby/Python support):
cd path/to/neovim/src
Drop into nix-shell to pull in the Neovim dependencies:
nix-shell '<nixpkgs>' -A neovim-unwrapped
Configure and build:
rm -rf build && cmakeConfigurePhase
buildPhase
Tests are not available by default, because of some unfixed failures. You can enable them via adding this package in your overlay:
neovim-dev = (super.pkgs.neovim-unwrapped.override {
doCheck=true;
}).overrideAttrs(oa:{
cmakeBuildType="debug";
nativeBuildInputs = oa.nativeBuildInputs ++ [ self.pkgs.valgrind ];
shellHook = ''
export NVIM_PYTHON_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG
export NVIM_LOG_FILE=/tmp/log
export VALGRIND_LOG="$PWD/valgrind.log"
'';
});
and replacing neovim-unwrapped with neovim-dev:
nix-shell '<nixpkgs>' -A neovim-dev
A flake for Neovim is hosted at nix-community/neovim-nightly-overlay, with 3 packages:
neovim to run the nightlyneovim-debug to run the package with debug symbolsneovim-developer to get all the tools to develop on neovimThus you can run Neovim nightly with nix run github:nix-community/neovim-nightly-overlay.
Similarly to develop on Neovim: nix run github:nix-community/neovim-nightly-overlay#neovim-developer.
To use a specific version of Neovim, you can pass --override-input neovim-src . to use your current directory,
or a specific SHA1 like --override-input neovim-src github:neovim/neovim/89dc8f8f4e754e70cbe1624f030fb61bded41bc2.
Some deps can be pulled from haiku repos, the rest need “bundled” deps:
cmake -DUSE_BUNDLED_LIBUV=OFF -DUSE_BUNDLED_UNIBILIUM=OFF -DUSE_BUNDLED_LUAJIT=OFF -B .deps ./cmake.deps
make -C .deps
sudo pkg install cmake gmake sha wget gettext curl git
If you get an error regarding a sha256sum mismatch, where the actual SHA-256 hash is e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855, then this is your issue (that’s the sha256sum of an empty file).
doas pkg_add gmake cmake curl gettext-tools git
Build can sometimes fail when using the top level Makefile, apparently due to some third-party component (see #2445-comment). The following instructions use CMake:
mkdir .deps
cd .deps
cmake ../cmake.deps/
gmake
cd ..
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
gmake
xcode-select --installbrew install ninja cmake gettext curl git
brew install curl-ca-bundle
echo CA_CERTIFICATE=$(brew --prefix curl-ca-bundle)/share/ca-bundle.crt >> ~/.wgetrc
'stdio.h' file not found, try the following:open /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Packages/macOS_SDK_headers_for_macOS_10.14.pkg
xcode-select --installsudo port install ninja cmake gettext git
sudo port install curl-ca-bundle
echo CA_CERTIFICATE=/opt/local/share/curl/curl-ca-bundle.crt >> ~/.wgetrc
'stdio.h' file not found, try the following:open /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Packages/macOS_SDK_headers_for_macOS_10.14.pkg
From a newer macOS version, to build for older macOS versions, you will have to set the macOS deployment target:
make CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.13 DEPS_CMAKE_FLAGS="-DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=$(xcrun -find c++)"
Note that the C++ compiler is explicitly set so that it can be found when the deployment target is set.
Neovim is a Vim-based text editor engineered for extensibility and usability, to encourage new applications and contributions.
Visit #neovim:matrix.org or #neovim on irc.libera.chat to chat with the team.