News

Unreleased

• Restored Neovim’s built-in compressed-file support, tar/zip browsing, and Tutor. Blak disables only the netrw directory handler that its explorer replaces. See the native-helpers migration for opting out.

• Reload now discards cached plugin options, preserves custom Conform/Blink options from plugins.specs, removes stale formatter filetypes, and replaces removed LSP settings. Live extras refresh their plugin specs before setup.

• :BlakKeys now includes mappings in the current buffer, including Blak’s extras UI and plugin-owned shortcuts.

• Background buffer reads no longer move the visible cursor. Hiding a terminal preserves its tab even when it is the last normal window beside a float.

• Fixed false-positive smoke results: failed Lua assertions now return a failing exit status. Tests use disposable XDG directories and the committed plugin pins, compile all Lua modules, and validate every extra independently.

• Restricted Mason’s automatic LSP activation to configured servers, so disabled extras stay disabled after restart. mason.automatic_install = false now covers language servers; :BlakToolsInstall explicitly requests both servers and tools. Add manually installed servers to lsp.servers to auto-enable them.

• Fixed stale leader and LSP mappings on reload, preserved user LSP mapping overrides, and prevented :BlakKeys from corrupting later registry updates. Disabling lint events or shared clipboard now removes the old behavior.

• Rollback now validates every snapshot file before restoring anything; failed backups abort updates instead of recording unreadable files as absent.

• Extras preserve explicit LSP and Snacks settings. Reload reuses one plugin-spec refresh path and leaves unused formatting plugins deferred. Missing parsers no longer replace native indentation, and terminal toggling preserves windows reused for editing.

• Installers reject unsafe app names and preserve existing launchers and unrelated development symlinks. Installer smoke also checks the current working tree.

• Refreshed 11 plugin pins while retaining Blink’s stable 1.* release policy. Updated the documentation stack to Astro 7.3.1, Starlight 0.42.0, and Sharp 0.35.4; docs development now requires Node.js 22.12+ (CI uses Node.js 24). Updated the GitHub Actions checkout, language setup, and Pages actions.

• Corrected the advertised theme and clarified update channels, checkout updates, rollback limits, plugin-owned mappings, and retained Mason/parser installations. The docs-link validator now checks the actual root-relative routes.

• :BlakDoctor no longer reports a broken fff picker as healthy. It probed require("fff"), which resolves to fff.main and defers the Rust backend into function bodies, so it succeeded even with no native library on disk. The check now probes the backend and names the fix, including the case where fff downloaded the library but could not install it over the loaded one and left it at <binary>.tmp.

• Linting no longer reports failures at the user. A configured linter that is not installed is skipped instead of raising Error running <cmd>: ENOENT on every lint event, and linter output that cannot be parsed is reported once as a warning instead of being pinned to line 1 of the buffer as a fake diagnostic. :checkhealth blak gained a “Linters” section that lists every configured linter and whether its binary was found.

• lang.typescript and lang.typescript-tsgo no longer run eslint_d. Both extras already enable the ESLint language server, so ESLint diagnostics were being produced twice from the same project configuration. Dropping the nvim-lint entry removes the duplicate source and the eslint_d spawn and parse failures that came with it. To keep eslint_d, add it back per filetype: lint = { linters_by_ft = { typescript = { "eslint_d" } } }.

• Re-enabled the built-in matchparen and matchit plugins. Stock Neovim highlights the matching bracket under the cursor and extends % matching; Blak disabled both for a negligible startup win without replacing them, which contradicted the native-first contract. To turn them back off, set vim.g.loaded_matchparen = 1 and vim.g.loaded_matchit = 1 in a hooks.before function in lua/blak/user.lua.

v0.3.0 — Fifteen new extras

A batch of opt-in extras that widen language and workflow coverage without touching any default. Each is reversible and disabled by default.

• Languages: lang.c (clangd + clang-format), lang.bash (bashls + shellcheck), lang.web (HTML/CSS/Tailwind/Emmet + Prettier), lang.docker (dockerls + Compose + hadolint), lang.yaml and lang.json (language servers wired to SchemaStore), lang.terraform (terraform-ls + tflint), lang.nix (nil + nixfmt), and lang.zig (zls).
• Editor: editor.flash for label-based motions (Flash’s char mode is off, so f/t/F/T stay native), editor.grug-far for project-wide find and replace, and editor.scratch for Snacks scratch buffers.
• Git: git.gitbrowse opens the current file or line on the remote, and git.neogit adds a Magit-style interactive Git interface.
• UI: ui.indent enables Snacks indent guides with animated scope.
• No default keymaps, picker, completion engine, explorer, or LSP strategy changed. The Snacks-backed extras add no new plugins.

v0.2.2 — Dependency refresh

A maintenance release that refreshes the bundled plugin pins without adding configuration weight or changing any defaults.

• The lazy lockfile was updated, bumping conform.nvim, fff, lazy.nvim, mason.nvim, mini.icons, nvim-lint, nvim-lspconfig, oil.nvim, and snacks.nvim to their latest tracked commits.
• No default keymaps, picker, completion engine, explorer, or LSP strategy changed. Muscle memory is preserved — this is purely a dependency refresh.

v0.2.1 — Editing defaults polish

This patch release tightens two default editing surfaces without adding new configuration weight.

• Pair handling now uses nvim-autopairs, which gives the expected brace block shape when pressing Enter inside {}.
• <Space><Space> is now documented and implemented as a plain file finder instead of a duplicate “smart” picker. :BlakPick smart remains available as a compatibility alias for files.
• Docs and smoke coverage were updated for pair insertion, picker dispatch, and the Mini extra’s non-conflicting module guidance.

v0.2.0 — Extras, updates, and docs

Blak’s second preview release is the first one that feels shaped for regular use rather than just first install. Extras are discoverable, configuration reloads are safer, updates have a clearer trust contract, and the docs now describe the runtime instead of merely introducing it.

Core

• :BlakExtras opens a browsable extras UI, and extras can now be enabled, disabled, synced, and activated live.
• lua/blak/user.lua auto-refreshes more predictably, including user keymaps and function-valued mappings.
• :BlakDocs opens the docs site from inside Neovim.
• New management keymaps live under <Space>l; native split maps and alternate-file toggling were added.
• Configuration now has typed metadata, schema validation, string completions, and a richer lua/blak/user.example.lua.
• Startup work is deferred across plugin and config setup so common paths load less up front.

Updates

• :BlakUpdate now enforces the accepted channel and blocks pending breaking migrations.
• :BlakUpgrade handles deliberate migrations and workflow-affecting moves.
• Rollback, install, and smoke-test paths were hardened.
• The public installer now creates a sparse runtime checkout with the runtime files Blak actually needs.

Theme

• blak.theme centralizes theme loading.
• TokyoNight now goes through a theme adapter.
• Transparent editor backgrounds can be enabled with ui.transparent.
• The default theme stays plain tokyonight-night.

Extras

• AI: Claude Code, Sidekick, Supermaven.
• Debug/test: DAP and Neotest.
• Editor: Aerial, Harpoon, mini modules, Overseer, Refactoring, render-markdown, Snacks explorer, Snacks terminal, todo-comments, Trouble, window navigation.
• UI: Base46, comfy line numbers, dim, lualine.
• Language: TypeScript tsgo, plus Rust crates.nvim support.

Fixes

• Restored local file discovery in the fff picker provider.
• Refreshed blink super-tab mappings after config changes.
• Smoothed Snacks explorer quit behavior and splash recentering.
• Stopped the Snacks explorer extra from installing fd unexpectedly.
• Stabilized CI smoke tests.

v0.1.0 — Public preview

Initial implementation. Complete enough to install, use, and share — young enough that issues and contributor feedback are expected.

Core

• Native-first Neovim 0.12 config built on vim.lsp.config() and vim.lsp.enable().
• lazy.nvim package backend with config-aware rollback snapshots (:BlakUpdate, :BlakUpgrade, :BlakRollback).
• fff.nvim as the primary file picker with snacks / telescope / fzf-lua provider fallbacks.
• blink.cmp for completion.
• Snacks dashboard, input, notifier, picker, quickfile, bigfile modules.
• Animated black-hole splash extracted from milli.nvim’s blackhole GIF preview.
• Conform formatting, nvim-lint linting, native Treesitter.
• Oil as the default file explorer; native terminal split; Gitsigns; Which-key.
• TokyoNight Night as the default colorscheme.

Extras (reversible)

• Languages: lua, typescript, typescript-tsgo, python, python-pro, rust, go, markdown.
• UI: animations, image-preview, zen.
• Git: lazygit, diffview.
• Editor: neotree, snacks-explorer, telescope, fzf-lua.
• AI: copilot, sidekick.

Distribution

• One-command installer that creates a blak launcher under ~/.local/bin and uses NVIM_APPNAME=blak so existing Neovim configs are not touched.
• ./dev-install.sh for local-symlink development.
• CI: static validation + a Neovim smoke test on every push.
• :BlakTreesitterInstall helper for parser installation.

This page is the human-readable changelog. Issues, milestones, and discussions live on the GitHub repo.