nvim + devcontainers (with clipboard support!)

nvim_devcontainers.md

Build container:

• Run devcontainer up (.X11-unix is needed for clipboard to work)

devcontainer up --remove-existing-container --mount "type=bind,source=$HOME/.config/nvim,target=/nvim-config" --mount "type=bind,source=/tmp/.X11-unix,target=/tmp/.X11-unix" --workspace-folder .

Setup container:

TL;DR one-liner:

devcontainer exec --workspace-folder . --remote-env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY bash -c "sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y xclip &&  curl -LO https://github.com/neovim/neovim/releases/latest/download/nvim.appimage && chmod +x nvim.appimage && ./nvim.appimage --appimage-extract && sudo mv squashfs-root /nvim && sudo ln -s /nvim/AppRun /bin/nvim && mkdir -p ~/.config/ && ln -s /nvim-config ~/.config/nvim"

Step by step:

• Enter container:

devcontainer exec --workspace-folder . --remote-env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY zsh

• Install xclip inside the container for clipboard:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y xclip

• Instal nvim in the container (the AppImage ensures it is a recent version):

curl -LO https://github.com/neovim/neovim/releases/latest/download/nvim.appimage
chmod +x nvim.appimage
./nvim.appimage --appimage-extract
sudo mv squashfs-root /nvim
sudo ln -s /nvim/AppRun /bin/nvim

• Link nvim config to the correct place (until we can use XDG_CONFIG_HOME directly on devcontainer up):

mkdir -p ~/.config/ && ln -s /nvim-config ~/.config/nvim

Running nvim

devcontainer exec --workspace-folder . --remote-env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY bash -c "nvim ."

Tips and troubleshooting

Clipboard not working

If running Wayland, you may need to do the following on the host:

xhost +local:docker