hedit

hedit is a lightweight, terminal-based text editor written in hica. It aims to pair modern editor UX (standard keybindings, mouse, multiple cursors, split views) with hica's algebraic effects and Perceus-based memory management (FBIP).

Configuration & plugins: HiLisp

hedit uses HiLisp (a small Lisp interpreter written in hica) as its configuration and plugin language. There is no second scripting runtime planned: settings, keybindings, and (later) plugins are all authored as .hl files evaluated by the same embedded HiLisp interpreter.

HiLisp lives as a git submodule under lib/hilisp/ and is compiled together with hedit (see hica.hml).

Example init.hl

;; ~/.config/hedit/init.hl

(set "tabsize"     4)
(set "auto-indent" true)
(set "theme"       "ilseon")

(bind "Ctrl-s" 'save)
(bind "Ctrl-q" 'quit)
(bind "Meta-w" 'close-buffer)

Config discovery order (first hit wins):

1. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/hedit/init.hl (or $HOME/.config/hedit/init.hl)
2. $HOME/.hedit.hl

If neither exists, hedit runs with hard-coded defaults.

See examples/init.hl for all available options

API surface

Built-in	Purpose
(set key value)	Set a configuration value
(get key)	Read a configuration value
(bind keystroke action)	Map a keystroke to a named built-in action
(plugin "name")	Opt into loading plugins/<name>/plugin.hl (see Plugins below)
(on 'event (fn (...) ...))	Register a hook for a lifecycle event (see Plugins below)

Plugins

A plugin is just another .hl file — there's no separate plugin format or manager. hedit never auto-discovers plugins by scanning a folder; you opt in by name from init.hl, and hedit resolves that name to a file next to init.hl itself.

1. Write the plugin file at plugins/<name>/plugin.hl, in the same directory as the init.hl that will load it (i.e. next to whichever one of $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/hedit/init.hl, $HOME/.config/hedit/init.hl, or $HOME/.hedit.hl you're using):

;; ~/.config/hedit/plugins/greeter/plugin.hl
(on 'buffer-open (fn (path) "Welcome to hedit!"))

2. Wire it up with (plugin "name") in init.hl — this is the step that's easy to forget, since creating the plugins/ folder alone does nothing:

;; ~/.config/hedit/init.hl
(plugin "greeter")

Available hooks, registered with (on 'event (fn (...) ...)) (more than one plugin/hook can register for the same event; they run in registration order):

Event	Args	Fires
'buffer-open	(path)	A buffer finished loading ("" for a scratch buffer); on startup and on new-buffer/open
'pre-save	(path)	Before writing a named buffer to disk
'post-save	(path)	After a successful save
'pre-action	(action-name)	Before every resolved action (the same name (bind ...) targets)
'quit	()	Once, best-effort, right before hedit exits

Two conventions apply across all hooks instead of new builtins:

• Cancel: if any pre-save/pre-action hook returns false, the save/action is skipped. Quit is the one exception — it always proceeds no matter what a pre-action hook returns, so a plugin can never trap the editor open.
• Status: if a hook returns a string, it becomes the next status-bar message.

A broken or missing plugin.hl surfaces a one-line status message naming the plugin and never blocks init.hl or any other plugin from loading.

See examples/plugins/ for two reference plugins (greeter, word-count) and examples/init.hl for the (plugin ...) opt-in syntax.

Quick Install

Using standard curl:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/cladam/hedit/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

Or install hedit using hicurl:

hicurl https://github.com/cladam/hedit/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

Installs binary (macos-arm64, linux-arm64, linux-x86_64) to ~/.local/bin. Override target location with HEDIT_INSTALL_DIR=/usr/local/bin.

HEDIT_INSTALL_DIR=/usr/local/bin curl -fsSL https://github.com/cladam/hedit/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh
# Or with hicurl
HEDIT_INSTALL_DIR=/usr/local/bin hicurl https://github.com/cladam/hedit/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

Note: No Windows support!

Cloning

Because HiLisp is a submodule:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/cladam/hedit.git
# or, if already cloned:
git submodule update --init --recursive

To bump the pinned HiLisp version:

git submodule update --remote lib/hilisp

Usage

hica build -o hedit           # compile to ./hedit
./hedit                       # open an empty scratch buffer
./hedit somefile.txt          # open a real file

Default keybindings (overridable from init.hl). Full reference with every chord: docs/hedit-cheatsheets.md (or press Ctrl-g/Meta-h inside hedit for a live overlay).

• File: Ctrl-s save, Ctrl-o open-file prompt, Ctrl-q quit
• Readline-style editing: Ctrl-a/Ctrl-e line start/end, Ctrl-b/Ctrl-f left/right, Ctrl-d delete-forward, Ctrl-k kill-line, Ctrl-w kill-word-back, Meta-f/Meta-b word forward/back, Meta-d kill-word-forward, Meta-l kill-whole-line
• Clipboard & history: Ctrl-c/Ctrl-v copy/paste, Ctrl-y yank (same clipboard slot as paste), Ctrl-z undo, Ctrl-r redo
• Buffers: Meta-o/Meta-n/Meta-p/Meta-w new/next/prev/close buffer
• Help: Ctrl-g/Meta-h toggle the keybindings overlay

Command-line flags

hedit                                   # empty scratch buffer
hedit file.txt                          # open a file
hedit +42 file.txt                      # open at line 42
hedit +42:8 file.txt                    # open at line 42, column 8
hedit --readonly file.txt               # -R — open read-only (Save disabled)
hedit --tabsize 2 file.txt              # override tabsize for this run
hedit --config init.hl file.txt         # load config from elsewhere
hedit --no-config file.txt              # skip init.hl entirely
hedit --help / --version

CLI flags always win over init.hl, e.g. --tabsize overrides a (set "tabsize" ...) in the loaded config.

License

MIT – see LICENSE.