packernvim

Packernvim, commonly referred to as packer.nvim, is a Neovim plugin manager written in Lua. It manages plugins hosted on Git repositories and aims to provide a fast, reliable, and extensible workflow for configuring Neovim plugins. The project emphasizes lazy-loading, automatic dependency handling, and a simple configuration model that fits Neovim's Lua ecosystem.

Installation and bootstrap: Install by cloning the repository into Neovim's runtime path: git clone https://github.com/wbthomason/packer.nvim ~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/packer/start/packer.nvim. A bootstrap snippet is often used to install packer on first run.

Usage: In your init.lua, call require('packer').startup(function(use) ... end). Plugins are added with use statements, e.g., use 'wbthomason/packer.nvim' or table forms for options such as config, requires, opt, event, cmd, or setup. Packer provides several commands: PackerInstall, PackerSync, PackerUpdate, PackerClean, and PackerCompile, and can auto-recompile when the plugins.lua file changes.

Features: automatic installation when missing, lazy-loading by events, filetypes, commands, or keymaps, dependency resolution, post-install/update hooks, and optional plugin-specific configurations. It also compiles a loader for speed.

Version and status: Packernvim is one of the most widely used Neovim plugin managers, particularly among Lua-config enthusiasts. It is often compared with vim-plug and newer alternatives like lazy.nvim, which offer similar functionality with different design choices.