Plugins

Blak ships with sixteen default plugin specs out of the box, plus lazy.nvim as the package backend. Reusable optional behavior belongs in an extra; personal plugins can live in plugins.specs in user.lua.

All base specs live under lua/blak/plugins/.

UI

TokyoNight (folke/tokyonight.nvim)

Default colorscheme. Blak loads TokyoNight Night without a custom palette or highlight overlay. Loaded eagerly with higher priority than other UI plugins so startup surfaces inherit the final theme.

Snacks (folke/snacks.nvim)

Modules enabled by default:

Module	Purpose
dashboard	Start screen, hosts the Blak splash header
bigfile	Disables heavy features for files > performance.bigfile_size
quickfile	Faster opening for the first buffer
input	Replaces vim.ui.input with a floating prompt
notifier	Replaces vim.notify with stacked toasts
picker	Picker backend (used unless you swap to telescope / fzf_lua)
words	Highlights other occurrences of the word under cursor

Loaded eagerly only when the splash dashboard is enabled; otherwise it waits until VeryLazy. When eager, priority = 1000 keeps its UI hooks ahead of later plugins. Spec: lua/blak/plugins/ui.lua.

which-key (folke/which-key.nvim)

Pops up after the leader (or any prefix) showing the registered keymap groups. Blak pre-registers groups for b (buffers), c (code), f (find), g (git), l (lazy/blak), q (quit), t (terminal), u (toggles), w (windows), x (diagnostics). Loaded on VeryLazy.

Editor

mini.icons (nvim-mini/mini.icons)

Icon provider. Mocks nvim-web-devicons so plugins expecting that API still work without it. Pinned to version = false because the icon set changes frequently.

nvim-autopairs (windwp/nvim-autopairs)

Auto-pairs for brackets, quotes, and paired newline insertion. Loaded on InsertEnter. This is core because the default editing floor should handle common delimiter insertion without requiring a preference-heavy extra.

nvim-treesitter (nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter, main branch)

Parser-based syntax, indent, and queries. Configured via lua/blak/core/treesitter.lua. The plugin wakes on BufReadPre / BufNewFile; parser attachment still happens per-buffer on FileType when the line count is below performance.max_treesitter_lines. See Treesitter.

nvim-ts-autotag (windwp/nvim-ts-autotag)

Auto-closes and renames paired HTML/XML-style tags using Treesitter. Loaded on buffer reads and new files. Blak keeps the slash-close shortcut disabled so normal / insertion is not claimed by surprise.

oil.nvim (stevearc/oil.nvim)

The default file explorer when explorer.provider = "oil". Treats directories as buffers you edit. <leader>e opens at the current buffer’s directory, falling back to the cwd when there is no file. Loaded eagerly so blak ., :edit <directory>, and Oil’s directory takeover behave consistently. Float style: 90 × 90 with rounded border.

Picker

fff.nvim (dmtrKovalenko/fff)

Default file picker. Native binary backend, downloaded on plugin build. Layout 88 × 82, frecency + history enabled. Registered only when picker.provider == "fff" and loaded on first picker use.

See Pickers for swapping the backend.

Completion

blink.cmp (saghen/blink.cmp)

Native completion engine. On the stable channel it pins to the 1.* release; on edge/nightly it builds from source via cargo build --release. Provides LSP, path, snippet, and buffer sources. Ghost text on, documentation auto-show at 250 ms, auto-brackets, rounded borders. The default keymap preset stays default; set completion.super_tab = true to use blink.cmp’s super-tab preset. LSP setup registers completion capabilities without loading blink, so the plugin still wakes on InsertEnter or CmdlineEnter. Spec: lua/blak/plugins/completion.lua.

LSP

nvim-lspconfig (neovim/nvim-lspconfig)

Server configurations only — Blak uses Neovim 0.12’s native vim.lsp.config() and vim.lsp.enable() for the actual wiring. Loaded on BufReadPre, BufNewFile, or LSP commands so empty dashboard startup avoids LSP cost while the first real file still gets setup before attach. See LSP.

mason.nvim (mason-org/mason.nvim)

Tool installer. UI border honors ui.winborder. Loads on :Mason, VeryLazy, or as an LSP dependency. Auto-install is controlled by mason.automatic_install. See Mason.

mason-lspconfig.nvim (mason-org/mason-lspconfig.nvim)

Bridges Mason package names to lspconfig server names. ensure_installed is derived from lsp.servers keys. Loads with the first real buffer so Mason-backed LSP enablement is ready before normal editing.

Formatting & linting

conform.nvim (stevearc/conform.nvim)

Formatter runner. Loads on BufWritePre. Format-on-save is gated by format.enabled plus the per-buffer / global disable flags (b:blak_disable_autoformat, g:blak_disable_autoformat). See Formatting.

nvim-lint (mfussenegger/nvim-lint)

Standalone linter runner. Loads on the events in lint.events (default: BufWritePost, BufReadPost, InsertLeave). Silent on missing external tools so it doesn’t spam errors when a linter isn’t installed yet. See Linting.

Git

gitsigns.nvim (lewis6991/gitsigns.nvim)

Sign-column git status, hunk navigation, stage / reset / blame. Loaded on BufReadPre and BufNewFile. Staged signs enabled. Preview border honors ui.winborder. See the git keymaps.

Why these sixteen

Every plugin here meets one rule from the philosophy:

A feature belongs in core only if most users benefit from it.

A picker, completion, LSP, formatting, linting, treesitter, delimiter/tag pairing, git status, an icon provider, a discoverable keymap menu, and broad highlight coverage for the default theme — that’s the floor for “a Neovim editing experience that doesn’t feel raw.” Everything else lives in an extra.

Native helpers

Blak keeps Neovim’s bundled gzip support, tar/zip browsing, and :Tutor enabled. Only the netrw directory handler is disabled because the configured explorer replaces it. The corresponding command-line tools must be installed for archive and compression operations.

To disable individual helpers, set their guards before startup in user.lua:

return {
  hooks = {
    before = function()
      vim.g.loaded_gzip = 1
      vim.g.loaded_tarPlugin = 1
      vim.g.loaded_zipPlugin = 1
      vim.g.loaded_tutor_mode_plugin = 1
    end,
  },
}

Keep only the lines for helpers you want disabled, then restart. Remove the lines and restart to restore native behavior.