Vision
Neovim is a refactor, and sometimes redactor, in the tradition of Vim (which
itself derives from Stevie).
It is not a rewrite but a continuation and extension of Vim. Many clones and
derivatives exist, some very clever—but none are Vim. Neovim is built
for users who want the good parts of Vim, and more.
Goals
Extensible. Usable. Vim.
- Retain the character of Vim—fast, versatile, quasi-minimal.
- Enable new contributors, remove barriers to entry.
- Unblock plugin authors.
- Deliver a first-class Lua interface, as an alternative to Vimscript.
- Favor composability (long-term thinking) instead of new, incompatible concepts (short-term thinking).
- Leverage ongoing Vim development.
- Optimize "out of the box", for new users but especially regular users.
- Deliver a consistent cross-platform experience, targeting all libuv-supported platforms.
- In matters of taste/ambiguity, favor tradition/compatibility...
- ...but prefer usability if the benefits are extreme.
Non-goals
- Support Vim9script
- Turn Vim into an IDE
- Limit third-party applications (such as IDEs!) built with Neovim
- Deprecate Vimscript
- Conform to POSIX vi
Project management