Vim4Helix

A Helix patch that adds Vim emulation without affecting Helix’s editing capabilities like multi-cursor support and tree-sitter awareness.

For a minimal patch containing only the Vim emulation changes on top of helix/master, see: https://github.com/badranX/helix/tree/vim4helix

Installation

Build from Source

To get the latest, build this project from source—just like Helix itself. Follow the official Helix build guide

Pre-built binaries

Download pre-built binaries from the GitHub Releases page. Then, follow the official Helix guide for setup steps.

Features

Switching between Vim mode and Helix

Vim mode is enabled by default. Use :vim-disable and :vim-enable to disable and enable Vim emulation.

Vim Supported Keybindings (Partial List)

Visual Mode, Visual Lines, and Visual Block

• Visual mode and Visual lines: v, V
• va), vi<textobject> (<textobject>: w, W, p...etc)
• Treesitter-related selection such as vaf to select a function.
• gv
• Visual Block: C-v works similarly to Vim’s visual block mode, but it’s not exactly the same — It simply creates multiple cursors.

Operators/Modifiers

• d, dd, c, cc, y, yy
• [c|y|d]<motion> like dw, dB
• [c|y|d]{textobject} like diw, da), yi}
• Treesitter-related modification keybindings such as daf to delete a function or yaf to yank a function.

Navigation

• *, #, n, N
• 0, ^, $
• f<char>, F<char>, t<char>, T<char>
• {, }
• w, W, b, B, e, E
• gg, G
• C-^, C-6

How to Find and Replace?

If you have sed on your System, you can use :s/../../flags like Vim or :s|..|..|flags. You don't need to add %, it will default to :%s in normal mode and will be applied to the selection in visual mode.

However, we advice using Helix multicursor to achive this:

1. Select target text

   • For the whole file: ggVG
   • You can also remap select_all/vim_select_all to directly select all text.

2. Create multicursors:

   • Press s, then type your regex (e.g., foo) and hit <Enter>. This will put a cursor on all foo in the buffer.

3. Replace using multi-cursor:

   • Use Vim-style editing. For example, press c to change selection, then type your replacement text.

4. Exit multi-cursor mode:

   • Press , (comma)

File Explorer/Picker (this is a Helix feature)

• <Space>e Open file explorer in workspace root
• <Space>E Open file explorer at current buffer's directory
• <Space>f Open file picker
• <Space>F Open file picker at current working directory

Things to Watch For

• Helix follows selection → action model. This patch simply removes the selection part for almost all commands in Normal mode. However, if you need the original Helix behavior of any command, you can wrap it with vim_cmd_off and vim_cmd_on in your config file:

[keys.normal]
"A-up" = ["vim_cmd_off", "expand_selection", "vim_cmd_on"]

• Helix's select_all (%) is mapped to match_brackets, similar to Vim. select_all creates a selection in Normal mode. If you need the command in Vim mode, apply the previous trick or map it to vim_select_all.

• s is used by Helix for select_regex and it's an important command for multi-cursor support. Either use c instead of s or remap keys.

• C is used by Helix for copy_selection_on_next_line and it's an important command for multi-cursor support. To get Vim behaviour, map it to vim_change_till_line_end.

• To get Helix's escape behavior instead of Vim's, you can remap it to the vim_normal_mode command:

[keys.insert]
"esc" = "vim_normal_mode"

These differences might be reduced in the future.

Vim Emulations in Helix

• vim.hx — Uses Helix's upcoming plugin system.
• evil-helix — A soft fork of Helix. This project adapts some ideas from evil-helix.
• helix-vim — Configuration-only changes that bring Helix closer to Vim.