lynn - native-first neovim plugin manager with charm

lynn is a small plugin manager built around neovim’s native vim.pack system. it's designed to feel invisible - doing just enough to ease plugin use without layering on complexity. ideal for native-first distros or anyone who prefers minimal configuration flow.

features

• manages plugins using vim.pack
• declarative plugin list stored in a single file
• integrates softly into the neovim lifecycle

why lynn?

• no bootstrapping code in your init.lua
• no abstraction over how plugins are actually loaded
• just a clear place to define what you want, and a helper to make it happen
• keeps your plugin specs simple

installation

-- init.lua or wherever
vim.pack.add({
  { src = "https://github.com/comfysage/lynn.nvim", name = "lynn" }
})

usage

1. define your plugins in lua/plugins.lua (or wherever you choose)
2. call require("lynn").setup("plugins") from your config
3. lynn handles passing your plugins to vim.pack.add and gives you a simple way to add lazy-loading

plugin spec

you can define your plugin spec like this:

{
  "owner/repo", -- or `url = "owner/repo"`/`url = "https://github.com/owner/repo"`
  name = "plugin-name", -- optionally rename the plugin
  event = "BufEnter", -- optional event
}

as you can see there's no opts or config field. instead lynn simply uses the :runtime command to source your configs in config/.

config

lynn automatically sources any files in config/ that match the plugin name.

this means you can simply create a mini.lua file in your config/ directory and whenever mini.nvim is loaded lynn will source it for you.

this means you dont need to clutter your lua/plugins/ directory with config functions anymore - they're just separate files.

requirements

• neovim 0.12+ (for vim.pack)
• git

footnote

lynn does not track plugin versions using a lockfile or manage updates automatically. this is by design - the plugin is based entirely on the vim.pack engine.

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for a working example, see sylvee. lynn is extracted from that project and maintained as a soft dependency.