Introduction

Envy is essentially a Nix-based plugin & configuration manager for neovim, providing:

• A convenient way to pin and package Vim plugins as Nix derivations.
• The ability for Vim plugin derivations to correctly depend on and pull in one another, and system dependencies (including plugin-native-language dependencies, C library dependencies, and executable dependencies).
• A Nix-based configuration mechanism that allows individual plugin configuration to depend on the install-time state of other plugins, dependencies, and potentially the system (in NixOS).
• A way to "layer" per-project plugins+configuration on top of per-user, in turn on top of per-system (albeit at a large memory cost at install-time).
• A method for existing users of NixOS/home-manager to tightly integrate neovim configuration into it, meaning that aspects of their neovim configuration can reliably depend upon aspects of their system or user configuration.
• A means to specify nvimrc configuration in vimscript, Lua, or MoonScript.
• More complexity than you want or need (probably).
• An end to world hunger.

The numbered chapters are intended to be read in order, as they build upon information in earlier chapters. The appendices are intended more as reference material.

Why?

Mostly because neovim plugin configuration is a bit of a clusterfuck. There's a deceptively (and increasingly) large amount of inherent complexity to the problem space, because neo/vim plugins can have dependencies on many axes (inter-plugin, external executable, Lua modules, remote host language modules, etc.), and those in turn have their own dependency closures, and may also depend on the system or user-level configuration.

Trying to reliably manage this cross-language, cross-system complexity using anything other than Nix quickly descends into either A) madness, or B) compromise. I'm not big on compromise.