Zim: Modular, customizable, and blazing fast Zsh framework
Zim is a Zsh configuration framework that bundles a plugin manager, useful modules, and a wide variety of themes, without compromising on speed.
Check how Zim compares to other frameworks and plugin managers:
Installing Zim is easy. You can choose either the automatic or manual method below:
This will install a predefined set of modules and a theme for you.
With curl
:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zimfw/install/master/install.zsh | zsh
With wget
:
wget -nv -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zimfw/install/master/install.zsh | zsh
Restart your terminal and you're done. Enjoy your Zsh IMproved! Take some time
to tweak your ~/.zshrc
file, and to also check the available
modules and themes you can add to your ~/.zimrc
.
Set Zsh as the default shell, if you haven't done so already:
chsh -s $(which zsh)
Restart your terminal and you're done. Enjoy your Zsh IMproved!
~/.zshrc
Add the lines below to your ~/.zshrc
file, in the following order:
To use our degit
tool by default to install modules:
zstyle ':zim:zmodule' use 'degit'
This is optional, and only required if you don't have git
installed (yes,
Zim works even without git
!)
To set where the directory used by Zim will be located:
ZIM_HOME=~/.zim
The value of ZIM_HOME
can be any directory your user has write access to.
You can even set it to a cache directory like ${XDG_CACHE_HOME}/zim
or
~/.cache/zim
if you also include the step below, that automatically
downloads the zimfw
plugin manager.
To automatically download the zimfw
plugin manager if missing:
# Download zimfw plugin manager if missing.
if [[ ! -e ${ZIM_HOME}/zimfw.zsh ]]; then
curl -fsSL --create-dirs -o ${ZIM_HOME}/zimfw.zsh \
https://github.com/zimfw/zimfw/releases/latest/download/zimfw.zsh
fi
Or if you use wget
instead of curl
:
# Download zimfw plugin manager if missing.
if [[ ! -e ${ZIM_HOME}/zimfw.zsh ]]; then
mkdir -p ${ZIM_HOME} && wget -nv -O ${ZIM_HOME}/zimfw.zsh \
https://github.com/zimfw/zimfw/releases/latest/download/zimfw.zsh
fi
This is optional. If you choose to not include this step, you should manually
download the zimfw.zsh
script once and keep it at ${ZIM_HOME}
.
To automatically install missing modules and update the static initialization script if missing or outdated:
# Install missing modules, and update ${ZIM_HOME}/init.zsh if missing or outdated.
if [[ ! ${ZIM_HOME}/init.zsh -nt ${ZDOTDIR:-${HOME}}/.zimrc ]]; then
source ${ZIM_HOME}/zimfw.zsh init -q
fi
This step is optional, but highly recommended. If you choose to not include
it, you must remember to manually run zimfw install
every time after you
update your ~/.zimrc
file.
To source the static script, that will initialize your modules:
# Initialize modules.
source ${ZIM_HOME}/init.zsh
~/.zimrc
You must create your .zimrc
file at ~/.zimrc
, if the ZDOTDIR
environment
variable is not defined. Otherwise, it must be at ${ZDOTDIR}/.zimrc
. It's
referred to as ~/.zimrc
in the documentation for the sake of simplicity.
You can start with just:
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions
If you also want one of our prompt themes:
zmodule asciiship
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions
If you want to use our completion module too, instead of using compinit
directly:
zmodule asciiship
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-completions --fpath src
zmodule completion
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions
The completion module calls compinit
for you. You should remove any
compinit
calls from your ~/.zshrc
when you use this module. The modules will
be initialized in the order they are defined, and completion must be
initialized after all modules that add completion definitions, so it must come
after zsh-users/zsh-completions.
Check the zmodule
usage below for more examples on how to use it to
define the modules you want to use.
The zimfw
plugin manager installs your modules at ${ZIM_HOME}/modules
, and
builds a static script at ${ZIM_HOME}/init.zsh
that will initialize them. Your
modules are defined in your ~/.zimrc
file.
The ~/.zimrc
file must contain zmodule
calls to define the modules to be
initialized. The initialization will be done in the same order it's defined.
The ~/.zimrc
file is not sourced during Zsh startup, and it's only used to
configure the zimfw
plugin manager.
Check examples of ~/.zimrc
files above.
Below are some usage examples:
zmodule archive
zmodule StackExchange/blackbox
zmodule https://gitlab.com/Spriithy/basher.git
zmodule /usr/local/share/zsh-autosuggestions
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-completions --fpath src
zmodule spaceship-prompt/spaceship-prompt --source spaceship.zsh --no-submodules
or
zmodule spaceship-prompt/spaceship-prompt --name spaceship --no-submodules
zmodule sindresorhus/pure --source async.zsh --source pure.zsh
. Separate
zmodule calls can also be used. In this equivalent example, the second call
automatically discovers the second file to be sourced:
zmodule sindresorhus/pure --source async.zsh
zmodule sindresorhus/pure
zmodule skywind3000/z.lua --cmd 'eval "$(lua {}/z.lua --init zsh enhanced once)"'
zmodule skywind3000/z.lua --on-pull 'lua z.lua --init zsh enhanced once >! init.zsh'
zmodule romkatv/powerlevel10k --use degit
zmodule ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh --root plugins/vim-interaction
zmodule sorin-ionescu/prezto --root modules/command-not-found
zmodule sorin-ionescu/prezto --root modules/gnu-utility
or
zmodule ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh --root plugins/perl
zmodule ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh --root plugins/vim-interaction
zmodule
usage?Usage: zmodule[-n|--name ] [-r|--root ] [options] Add zmodule calls to your ~/.zimrc file to define the modules to be initialized. The initiali- zation will be done in the same order it's defined. Module absolute path or repository URL. The following URL formats are equivalent: foo, zimfw/foo, https://github.com/zimfw/foo.git. If an absolute path is given, the module is considered externally installed and won't be installed or updated by zimfw. -n|--name Set a custom module name. Default: the last component in . Slashes can be used inside the name to organize the module into subdirectories. The module will be installed at ${ZIM_HOME}/ . -r|--root Relative path to the module root. Per-module options: -b|--branch Use specified branch when installing and updating the module. Overrides the tag option. Default: the repository default branch. -t|--tag Use specified tag when installing and updating the module. Over- rides the branch option. -u|--use Install and update the module using the defined tool. Default is either defined by zstyle ':zim:zmodule' use ' ', or git if none is provided. The tools available are: git uses the git command. Local changes are preserved on updates. degit uses curl or wget, and currently only works with GitHub URLs. Modules install faster and take less disk space. Local changes are lost on updates. Git submodules are not supported. mkdir creates an empty directory. The is only used to set the module name. Use the -c|--cmd or --on-pull options to execute the desired command to generate the module files. --no-submodules Don't install or update git submodules. -z|--frozen Don't install or update the module. The per-module options above are carried over multiple zmodule calls for the same module. Modules are uniquely identified by their name. Per-module-root options: --if Will only initialize module root if specified test returns a zero exit status. The test is evaluated at every new terminal startup. --if-command Will only initialize module root if specified external command is available. This is evaluated at every new terminal startup. Equivalent to --if '(( ${+commands[ ]} ))'. --on-pull Execute command after installing or updating the module. The com- mand is executed in the module root directory. -d|--disabled Don't initialize the module root or uninstall the module. The per-module-root options above are carried over multiple zmodule calls for the same mod- ule root. Per-call initialization options: -f|--fpath Will add specified path to fpath. The path is relative to the module root directory. Default: functions, if the subdirectory exists and is non-empty. -a|--autoload Will autoload specified function. Default: all valid names inside the functions subdirectory, if any. -s|--source Will source specified file. The path is relative to the module root directory. Default: init.zsh, if a non-empty functions sub- directory exists, else the largest of the files matching the glob (init.zsh| .(zsh|plugin.zsh|zsh-theme|sh)), if any. in the glob is resolved to the last component of the mod- ule name, or the last component of the path to the module root. -c|--cmd Will execute specified command. Occurrences of the {} placeholder in the command are substituted by the module root directory path. I.e., -s 'foo.zsh' and -c 'source {}/foo.zsh' are equivalent. Setting any per-call initialization option above will disable the default values from the other per-call initialization options, so only your provided values will be used. I.e. these values are either all automatic, or all manual in each zmodule call. To use default values and also provided values, use separate zmodule calls.
The Zim plugin manager:
~/.zimrc
? Run zimfw install
.~/.zimrc
? Run zimfw uninstall
.zimfw update
.zimfw
to its latest version? Run zimfw upgrade
.zimfw
plugin manager, run zimfw help
.Customize path of the directory used by Zim with the ZIM_HOME
environment
variable:
ZIM_HOME=~/.zim
By default, the zimfw
plugin manager configuration file must be at ~/.zimrc
,
if the ZDOTDIR
environment variable is not defined. Otherwise, it must be at
${ZDOTDIR}/.zimrc
. You can customize its full path and name with the
ZIM_CONFIG_FILE
environment variable:
ZIM_CONFIG_FILE=~/.config/zsh/zimrc
Modules are installed using git
by default. If you don't have git
installed, or if you want to take advantage of our degit tool for faster and
lighter module installations, you can set degit as the default tool with:
zstyle ':zim:zmodule' use 'degit'
By default, zimfw
will check if it has a new version available every 30 days.
This can be disabled with:
zstyle ':zim' disable-version-check yes
The best way to remove Zim is to manually delete ~/.zim
, ~/.zimrc
, and
remove the initialization lines from your ~/.zshenv
, ~/.zshrc
and ~/.zlogin
.