Editors

Editors

Multi-editor setup supporting VS Code family, Neovim, Emacs, JetBrains, Zed, and Positron.

Architecture

Module Layout

modules/editors/
  default.nix       Shared options, common extensions, common settings
  vscode.nix        Visual Studio Code
  cursor.nix        Cursor AI Editor (VS Code fork)
  kiro.nix          Kiro IDE (VS Code fork, AWS)
  antigravity.nix   Antigravity (VS Code fork)
  vim.nix           Neovim
  emacs.nix         Emacs + Doom Emacs
  jetbrains.nix     JetBrains IDE family
  positron.nix      Positron (data science)
  zed.nix           Zed Editor

VS Code Family Extension Sharing

VS Code, Cursor, Kiro, and Antigravity share a single extension list via modules.editors.vscode.commonExtensions defined in default.nix. Each editor only adds its own unique extensions on top (if any). This eliminates 4x duplication.

default.nix  ──►  commonExtensions  ──┬──► vscode.nix       (uses directly)
                                       ├──► cursor.nix       (uses directly)
                                       ├──► kiro.nix         (uses directly)
                                       └──► antigravity.nix  (uses directly)

Settings are similarly shared via modules.editors.vscode.commonSettings.

Extension Source: nix-vscode-extensions

All extensions come from nix-vscode-extensions, a community flake that caches ~80,000 extensions from the VS Code Marketplace and Open VSX, updated daily via GitHub Actions. This replaces nixpkgs’ built-in pkgs.vscode-extensions (only ~456 extensions, many outdated).

Source attrset: vscode-marketplace-release — release-only, platform-specific extensions. Individual extensions with version constraints (e.g. vadimcn.vscode-lldb) fall back to vscode-marketplace-release-universal.

Overlay: Applied via nixpkgs.overlays in modules/editors/default.nix, following the same pattern as modules/dev/rust.nix. This keeps the overlay self-contained with the module and ensures extensions inherit the system’s allowUnfree = true config:

# modules/editors/default.nix
{
  nixpkgs.overlays = [
    hey.inputs.nix-vscode-extensions.overlays.default
  ];
}

Unfree extensions: Marketplace extensions are marked unfree by buildVscodeMarketplaceExtension. Using the system overlay (instead of accessing the flake input directly via hey.inputs) ensures they inherit the system nixpkgs’ allowUnfree = true — otherwise pure evaluation fails with “Refusing to evaluate package because it has an unfree license.”

Extension Categories

AI Coding Agents

Programming Languages

Bioinformatics & Pipelines

File associations (in commonSettings):

• *.smk, *.snakefile, Snakefile → Python (syntax highlighting via treesitter)
• *.nf, nextflow.config → Groovy

Neovim filetype detection (in config/nvim/lua/plugins/languages.lua):

filetype = {
  extension = { smk = "python", snakefile = "python", nf = "groovy" },
  filename = { ["Snakefile"] = "python", ["nextflow.config"] = "groovy" },
},

Data Formats & Config

DevOps & Infrastructure

Database

Version Control & Code Review

Debugging

UI & Theme

Neovim (vim.nix)

Architecture

AstroNvim v6 + lazy.nvim + Nix-provided LSP tools. See docs/neovim.md for the complete developer guide.

Nix provides:     neovim (bare) + 50+ LSP/formatter/linter packages
Config link:      config/nvim/ → ~/.config/nvim/ (home.configFile, recursive symlink)
Plugin manager:   lazy.nvim (downloads to ~/.local/share/nvim/lazy/)
Framework:        AstroNvim v6 (keybindings, UI, LSP, completion)
Completion:       blink.cmp (Rust-based, replaces nvim-cmp)
Theme:            astrodark (AstroNvim built-in, via astroui.colorscheme)
File explorer:    neo-tree.nvim
Fuzzy finder:     snacks.nvim (replaces Telescope)

LSP Servers

Configured via astrolsp with native vim.lsp.config:

Formatters & Linters (none-ls)

DAP (Debug Adapter Protocol)

• nvim-dap + nvim-dap-ui + nvim-dap-virtual-text
• nvim-dap-python — Python debugging (debugpy)
• nvim-dap-go — Go debugging (delve)
• Keybindings: F5 continue, F10 step over, F11 step into, F12 step out, <Space>b breakpoint

Keybindings (Custom)

Fake HOME Jailing

All VS Code family editors and JetBrains IDEs use wrapFakeHome or mkWrapper to set HOME to ~/.local/user. This isolates editor state from the real home directory.

• VS Code: HOME="$XDG_FAKE_HOME"
• Cursor/Kiro/Antigravity: HOME=${config.home.fakeDir}
• JetBrains: wrapFakeHome per IDE binary
• Positron: mkWrapper with HOME=fakeDir

Remote SSH servers are configured to install to ~/.local/user/.vscode-server.

Adding New Extensions

To VS Code family editors

Add to modules/editors/default.nix under commonExtensions:

• Nixpkgs extensions: add to the with pkgs.vscode-extensions; [...] list
• Marketplace extensions: add to the with vscodeExtensionsPkgs.vscode-marketplace; [...] list

To Neovim

1. Add a Lua file in config/nvim/lua/plugins/ with the plugin spec (lazy.nvim format)
2. If it needs an LSP server, add the Nix package to nvim-lsp-packages in vim.nix
3. Reopen Neovim — lazy.nvim auto-installs the plugin
4. Commit the updated lazy-lock.json

Related Modules