Neovim Ecosystem

As we know, achieving a comfortable Vim or Neovim configuration is a painful and tedious task, especially when changing our host machine, experimenting with a new plugin or Neovim version, or updating all plugins at once. This project allows us to deal with those issues running Neovim and our desired configurations inside a Docker container.

This project contains two Dockerfiles, located in the nvim and nvim-c directories. The first allows building a Docker image with Neovim and basic tools and configurations, while the second provides a Docker image, based on the previous one, with specific tools for C/C++ development.

The Dockerfile in the nvim directory is intended to be used as a base image. It installs tools such as Cmake, tmux, fish, and Git, as well as Neovim plugins like CoC and other AI-related ones.

The Dockerfile in the nvim-c directory, based on the nvim image, installs specific tools for C/C++ development such as Clang, Gdb, Gcov, Lcov, Ceedling, and Codechecker, among others.

This project was partially inspired by nvim-ide.

Build Docker base image

cd nvim
docker build -t nvim-ide \
             --build-arg user=$(id -un) \
             --build-arg group=$(id -gn) \
             -f Dockerfile \
             .

Build Docker image for C/C++ development

cd nvim-c
docker build -t nvim-ide:c \
    --build-arg user=$(id -un) \
    --build-arg group=$(id -gn) \
    -f Dockerfile \
    .

Usage

1. Basic use.

   cd <your-repository>
   docker run -it --rm \
       -v $PWD:/home/$(id -un)/workspace \
       -u $(id -un):$(id -gn) \
       --name nvim-ide \
       nvim-ide:c \
       nvim

2. Pass host environment variables to use AI plugins

   cd <your-repository>
   docker run -it --rm \
       -v $PWD:/home/$(id -un)/workspace \
       -u $(id -un):$(id -gn) \
       -e <LLM>_API_KEY:$<LLM>_API_KEY \
       --name nvim-ide \
       nvim-ide:c \
       nvim

3. Interact with nvim-ide mouting some dotfiles from the host machine.

   cd <your-repository>
   docker run -it --rm \
       -v ~/.bashrc:/$(id -un)/.bashrc \
       -v ~/.gitconfig:/home/$(id -un)/.gitconfig \
       -v ~/.tmux.conf:/home/$(id -un)/.tmux.conf \
       -v $PWD:/home/$(id -un)/workspace \
       -u $(id -un):$(id -gn) \
       --name nvim-ide \
       nvim-ide:c \
       fish

Utilizing the clipboard from within a Docker container

To do it is necessary to handle X server authentication and establish a connection between the container and the host's X server. The $XAUTHORITY variable plays a crucial role in this process. It specifies the location of the X authority file, which contains the security credentials used to authorize connections to the X server.

Here's how to access the host's clipboard from a Docker container:

Alternative 1: using xhost

Run the following command on the host before running the container.

xhost +local:$(id -un)

Alternative 2: using xauth

1. Obtain X authentication token

   1. On the host machine, run xauth list
   2. Identify the line corresponding to your display (e.g., /unix:0)
   3. Copy the entire line, which represents the X authentication token

2. Prepare the container

   1. Run the container

   docker run -it --rm \
       -v ~/.bashrc:/$(id -un)/.bashrc \
       -v ~/.gitconfig:/home/$(id -un)/.gitconfig \
       -v ~/.tmux.conf:/home/$(id -un)/.tmux.conf \
       -v $PWD:/home/$(id -un)/workspace \
       -e DISPLAY \
       -e GEMINI_API_KEY=$GEMINI_API_KEY \
       -e ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY \
       -u $(id -un):$(id -gn) \
       --name nvim-ide \
       nvim-ide:c \
       fish

   2. Inside the Docker container, create the X authority file

   touch ~/.Xauthority

   3. Add the copied X authentication token to the container's X authority

   bash
   HEXKEY=<copy from host>
   xauth add $HOSTNAME/unix$DISPLAY MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 $HEXKEY