Installation

We provide pre-built binaries on the GitHub Releases page.

OSX

Helix is available in homebrew-core:

brew install helix

Linux

NixOS

A flake containing the package is available in the project root. The flake can also be used to spin up a reproducible development shell for working on Helix with nix develop.

Flake outputs are cached for each push to master using Cachix. The flake is configured to automatically make use of this cache assuming the user accepts the new settings on first use.

If you are using a version of Nix without flakes enabled you can install Cachix cli; cachix use helix will configure Nix to use cached outputs when possible.

Arch Linux

Releases are available in the community repository.

A helix-git package is also available on the AUR, which builds the master branch.

Fedora Linux

You can install the COPR package for Helix via

sudo dnf copr enable varlad/helix
sudo dnf install helix

Void Linux

sudo xbps-install helix

Windows

Helix can be installed using Scoop, Chocolatey or MSYS2.

Scoop:

scoop install helix

Chocolatey:

choco install helix

MSYS2:

pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-helix

or

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-helix

or

pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-helix

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/helix-editor/helix
cd helix
cargo install --path helix-term

This will install the hx binary to $HOME/.cargo/bin and build tree-sitter grammars in ./runtime/grammars.

Helix also needs its runtime files so make sure to copy/symlink the runtime/ directory into the config directory (for example ~/.config/helix/runtime on Linux/macOS). This location can be overridden via the HELIX_RUNTIME environment variable.

Starting with Windows Vista you can also create symbolic links on Windows. Note that this requires elevated privileges - i.e. PowerShell or Cmd must be run as administrator.

PowerShell:

New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Target "runtime" -Path "$Env:AppData\helix\runtime"

Cmd:

cd %appdata%\helix
mklink /D runtime "<helix-repo>\runtime"

The runtime location can be overridden via the HELIX_RUNTIME environment variable.

NOTE: if HELIX_RUNTIME is set prior to calling cargo install --path helix-term, tree-sitter grammars will be built in $HELIX_RUNTIME/grammars.

If you plan on keeping the repo locally, an alternative to copying/symlinking runtime files is to set HELIX_RUNTIME=/path/to/helix/runtime (HELIX_RUNTIME=$PWD/runtime if you're in the helix repo directory).

To use Helix in desktop environments that supports XDG desktop menu, including Gnome and KDE, copy the provided .desktop file to the correct folder:

cp contrib/Helix.desktop ~/.local/share/applications

To use another terminal than the default, you will need to modify the .desktop file. For example, to use kitty:

sed -i "s|Exec=hx %F|Exec=kitty hx %F|g" ~/.local/share/applications/Helix.desktop
sed -i "s|Terminal=true|Terminal=false|g" ~/.local/share/applications/Helix.desktop

Please note: there is no icon for Helix yet, so the system default will be used.

Finishing up the installation

To make sure everything is set up as expected you should finally run the helix healthcheck via

hx --health

For more information on the information displayed in the health check results refer to Healthcheck.

Building tree-sitter grammars

Tree-sitter grammars must be fetched and compiled if not pre-packaged. Fetch grammars with hx --grammar fetch (requires git) and compile them with hx --grammar build (requires a C++ compiler).

Installing language servers

Language servers can optionally be installed if you want their features (auto-complete, diagnostics etc.). Follow the instructions on the wiki page to add your language servers of choice.