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Jonny Barnes dda3868321

Show gitignored files in nvim-tree and follow the open buffer

Two nvim-tree defaults that were quietly getting in the way.

filters.git_ignored defaults to true, so gitignored files are hidden. The
symptom was .env being absent from a project while .env.example sat right
there, which reads as a dotfile filter but is not: filters.dotfiles is already
false, so dotfiles show. The filter is git-aware, and .env was simply reported
ignored. Verified in a throwaway repo ignoring .env and vendor/ — both appear
now, and neither did before, with the ignored glyph to distinguish them.

The trade-off is real and is the reason for the default: vendor/ and
node_modules/ now show too. filters.exclude = { '.env' } was the narrower
option, exempting one name while keeping the rest hidden. Chose the broad
setting deliberately; `I` in the tree hides them again per session.

update_focused_file.enable defaults to false, so the tree never moved when a
file was opened from fzf-lua. Enabling it reveals the current buffer on
BufEnter, uncollapsing folders to reach it. Verified on a nested fixture:
opening src/deep/nested/target.php expanded all three folders and put the tree
cursor on the file. Focus stays in the file window, so it reveals rather than
steals, and it follows every buffer switch, not just fzf-lua.

Left update_root off. It would re-root the tree at files outside the current
root, which makes the tree wander into vendor/ — worse now that ignored files
are visible and easier to open by accident.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

2026-08-12 21:18:55 +01:00

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neovim

Requires Neovim 0.12+. Several options used here (autocomplete, pumborder, pummaxwidth, and nearest in completeopt) only exist from 0.12, and plugins are managed with vim.pack, which landed in 0.12 too.

Day-to-day keymaps are not listed here — press <Space> and pause, and which-key shows what is available. This file covers the things that are not discoverable that way.

Layout

bootstrap.sh symlinks the pieces individually rather than linking the whole directory, because ~/.config/nvim also holds state Neovim writes itself:

repo	symlinked to
`init.lua`	`~/.config/nvim/init.lua`
`config/`	`~/.config/nvim/lua/config`
`lsp/phpactor.lua`	`~/.config/nvim/lsp/phpactor.lua`
`nvim-pack-lock.json`	`~/.config/nvim/nvim-pack-lock.json`

config/ is linked in as lua/config so everything is reachable as require('config.…'), which is what init.lua and config/init.lua do.

Plugins

Managed by vim.pack, so there is no plugin manager to bootstrap. Each plugin gets a file under config/plugins/ that calls vim.pack.add() and then configures itself, and config/plugins/init.lua requires them in turn.

Update with :lua vim.pack.update(). Versions are pinned in nvim-pack-lock.json, which is tracked — commit it after an update so the other machine gets the same set.

Note

nvim-web-devicons needs a Nerd Font in the terminal or the icons render as tofu. brew.sh installs one for ghostty.

Defaults worth knowing

Spell checking is on globally, en_gb — in every buffer, code included, not just prose filetypes.
Autocompletion is on via Neovim's own vim.o.autocomplete, with a rounded popup capped at 40 columns. No completion plugin is involved.
The sign column is always shown, so git and diagnostic signs appearing do not shift the text sideways.
netrw is disabled and nvim-tree takes over directory buffers, so nvim . opens the tree rather than netrw. The tree opens on the right.
The tree shows gitignored files, unlike nvim-tree's default — so .env is visible, at the cost of vendor/, node_modules/ and friends also showing. I in the tree hides them again for the session.
The tree follows the current buffer, expanding folders to reveal whatever you open — including files opened from fzf-lua. It does not change the tree root to do so, so opening a file from outside the root won't reveal it.
Diagnostic signs are letters (E W I H) rather than icons, and do not update while you are in insert mode.

PHP / LSP

lsp/phpactor.lua is the only language server configured, enabled from config/lsp.lua. It expects phpactor on PATH (brew.sh does not install it — it is a Composer global install).

It sets workspace_required, so it only attaches inside a project with one of .git, composer.json, .phpactor.json or .phpactor.yml — a loose .php file opened on its own gets no LSP, which is intentional rather than broken.

phpactor's bundled phpstan and psalm integrations are both disabled, so diagnostics come from phpactor itself. Run those tools separately if you want them.

Important

gitsigns keymaps are set globally, not from on_attach. Gitsigns attaches asynchronously, after which-key has already built its keymap tree for the buffer, and which-key only rebuilds on BufReadPost/BufNew/LspAttach — so buffer-local maps added later never appear in the popup. The gitsigns API no-ops in buffers it has not attached to, which is what makes global maps safe here. Don't “fix” this by moving them into on_attach.

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