Remote

Vim client-server communication

Nvim's RPC functionality allows clients to programmatically control Nvim. Nvim itself takes command-line arguments that cause it to become a client to another Nvim running as a server. These arguments match those provided by Vim's clientserver option.

The following command line arguments are available:

--remote [+{cmd}] {file} ... --remote
Open the file list in a remote Vim. When there is no Vim server, execute locally. Vim allows one init command: +{cmd}. This must be an Ex command that can be followed by "|". It's not yet supported by Nvim. The rest of the command line is taken as the file list. Thus any non-file arguments must come before this. You cannot edit stdin this way --. The remote Vim is raised. If you don't want this use

nvim --remote-send "<C-\><C-N>:n filename<CR>"

--remote-silent [+{cmd}] {file} ... --remote-silent
As above, but don't complain if there is no server and the file is edited locally. --remote-tab
--remote-tab Like --remote but open each file in a new tabpage. --remote-tab-silent
--remote-tab-silent Like --remote-silent but open each file in a new tabpage. --remote-send
--remote-send {keys} Send {keys} to server and exit. The {keys} are not mapped. Special key names are recognized, e.g., "<CR>" results in a CR character. --remote-expr
--remote-expr {expr} Evaluate {expr} in server and print the result on stdout. --remote-ui
--remote-ui Display the UI of the server in the terminal. Fully interactive: keyboard and mouse input are forwarded to the server. --server
--server {addr} Connect to the named pipe or socket at the given address for executing remote commands. See --listen for specifying an address when starting a server.

Start an Nvim server listening on a named pipe at '~/.cache/nvim/server.pipe':

nvim --listen ~/.cache/nvim/server.pipe

Edit "file.txt" in an Nvim server listening at '~/.cache/nvim/server.pipe':

nvim --server ~/.cache/nvim/server.pipe --remote file.txt

This doesn't work, all arguments after --remote will be used as file names:

nvim --remote --server ~/.cache/nvim/server.pipe file.txt

Tell the remote server to write all files and exit:

nvim --server ~/.cache/nvim/server.pipe --remote-send '<C-\><C-N>:wqa<CR>'

REMOTE EDITING

The --remote argument will cause a :drop command to be constructed from the rest of the command line and sent as described above. Note that the --remote and --remote-wait arguments will consume the rest of the command line. I.e. all remaining arguments will be regarded as filenames. You can not put options there!

Vim supports additional functionality in clientserver that's not yet implemented in Nvim. In particular, none of the "wait" variants are supported yet. The following command line arguments are not yet available:

--remote-wait [+{cmd}] {file} ... --remote-wait
Not yet supported by Nvim. As --remote, but wait for files to complete (unload) in remote Vim. --remote-wait-silent [+{cmd}] {file} ... --remote-wait-silent
Not yet supported by Nvim. As --remote-wait, but don't complain if there is no server. --remote-tab-wait
--remote-tab-wait Not yet supported by Nvim. Like --remote-wait but open each file in a new tabpage. --remote-tab-wait-silent
--remote-tab-wait-silent Not yet supported by Nvim. Like --remote-wait-silent but open each file in a new tabpage. --servername
--servername {name} Not yet supported by Nvim. Become the server {name}. When used together with one of the --remote commands: connect to server {name} instead of the default (see below). The name used will be uppercase.

--serverlist
--serverlist Not yet supported by Nvim. Output a list of server names.

By default Vim will try to register the name under which it was invoked (gvim, egvim ...). This can be overridden with the --servername argument. Nvim either listens on a named pipe or a socket and does not yet support this --servername functionality.