Fast and simple neovim lsp setup

Most new nvim users are usually buffled with LSP-setup, ending up installing a bunch of bloated plugins, sometimes overapping in functionality, and then using only one-third of the features.

But to have nice LSP support with auto-completion you actually just need to read :help lsp-quickstart to grasp the idea behind the built-in lsp in neovim. To save your time, I’ve made this fast read on how to configure LSP in nvim with minimal overkill.

Setting up LSP

To start using LSP, all you need to do is install the language-server itself, create ftplugin sub-directory in nvim config directory, create a file called ‘<file_type>.lua’:

$ mkdir $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nvim/ftplugin
$ nvim $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nvim/ftplugin/<file_type>.lua

with following content:

vim.lsp.start({
  name = 'lsp_name',
  cmd = {'language_server_cmd'},
  root_dir = vim.fs.dirname(vim.fs.find({'file_that_indicates_root_dir', 'another_one'}, { upward = true })[1]),
})

You can choose lsp name arbitrary, I’m just using common name for the language-server I’m going to start.

If your language-server command line needs some arguments to be passed, just append them to the dictionary (preten array in this case) cmd like this:

cmd = {'language_server_cmd', '-some', 'atgument', '-goes', 'here'}

The root_dir key is used to tell nvim where is root directory situated. You can use different functions for that, expecially from vim.fs module, the main one being used the most is find. See :help vim.fs for other available.

Here are some examples of configs I’m using in my setup:

~/.config/nvim/ftplugin/c.lua:

vim.lsp.start({
  name = 'clangd',
  cmd = {'clangd'},
  root_dir = vim.fs.dirname(vim.fs.find({'Makefile', 'main.c'}, { upward = true })[1]),
})

~/.config/nvim/ftplugin/rust.lua:

vim.lsp.start({
  name = 'rust-analyzer',
  cmd = {'rust-analyzer'},
  root_dir = vim.fs.dirname(vim.fs.find({'Cargo.toml', 'main.rs'}, { upward = true })[1]),
})

~/.config/nvim/ftplugin/elixir.lua:

vim.lsp.start({
  name = 'elixir-ls',
  cmd = {'language_server.sh'},
  root_dir = vim.fs.dirname(vim.fs.find({ 'mix.exs' }, { upward = true })[1]),
})

~/.config/nvim/ftplugin/erlang.lua:

vim.lsp.start({
  name = 'erlang_ls',
  cmd = {'erlang_ls'},
  root_dir = vim.fs.dirname(vim.fs.find({'rebar.config', 'src/'}, { upward = true })[1]),
})

You got the idea:).

After you configure lsp that way, and open file with corresponding file_type you already can use lsp-completion on onmi-menu (i.e. C-X C-O by default).

If you want to enable auto-completion, read the next section

Auto-completion

I’m using lazy.nvim plugin manager to setup plugins, after packer.nvim was discontinued. You need to add:

  { 'hrsh7th/cmp-nvim-lsp' },
  { 'hrsh7th/nvim-cmp' },

to your plugins list, restart nvim to setup them, and you have yourself a nice lsp auto-completion ready to go.