What’s New in Neovim 0.12

Neovim 0.12.0 was released on March 29, 2026. This release adds a built-in plugin manager, expands built-in LSP support, introduces native insert-mode auto-completion, improves the default UI and statusline, adds several useful Lua APIs, and includes a number of breaking changes that may require config updates.

This guide is organized around the changes that matter most in day-to-day use, with practical examples and a short migration checklist at the end.

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At a glance

The most important additions in 0.12 are:

• Built-in plugin management with vim.pack

• Expanded built-in LSP support, including selectionRange, inlineCompletion, linkedEditingRange, documentLink, and viewport-only semantic tokens

• Native insert-mode auto-completion via the new 'autocomplete' option

• A redesigned experimental core UI (ui2)

• New commands such as :restart, :connect, and :uniq

• Useful new Lua APIs such as vim.net.request(), vim.fs.ext(), vim.list.unique(), and vim.list.bisect()

• Built-in plugins such as :Undotree and :DiffTool

• Breaking changes around diagnostics, Treesitter behavior, and renamed APIs

Official source: :help news-0.12.

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1. Built-in plugin manager: vim.pack

Neovim 0.12 adds vim.pack, a built-in plugin manager. It is still marked experimental, but the official docs describe it as stable enough for daily use.

Basic usage

vim.pack.add({
  'https://github.com/sainnhe/gruvbox-material',
  'https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter',
  {
    src = 'https://github.com/neovim/nvim-lspconfig',
    version = 'v2.0.0',
  },
})

You can also use a table to set the plugin name explicitly:

vim.pack.add({
  {
    src = 'https://github.com/user/generic-name',
    name = 'my-plugin',
  },
})

Where plugins live

vim.pack manages plugins in a dedicated directory under your data path:

site/pack/core/opt

It also maintains a lockfile at:

~/.config/nvim/nvim-pack-lock.json

That lockfile should be treated like part of your config and kept under version control.

Updating plugins

vim.pack.update()

By default, this opens a confirmation buffer where you can review pending changes.

Useful variants:

vim.pack.update({ 'nvim-treesitter' })
vim.pack.update(nil, { force = true })
vim.pack.update(nil, { offline = true })
vim.pack.update(nil, { target = 'lockfile' })

Deleting plugins

vim.pack.del({ 'old-plugin' })

Important caveats

• vim.pack uses Git and expects plugin sources to be Git repositories.

• It is not a lazy-loading framework.

• During init.lua sourcing, plugin loading defaults differently than after startup, so read :help vim.pack if you rely on exact loading behavior.

• If a plugin is already on disk, vim.pack.add() does not automatically verify that its current revision matches the declared version; use vim.pack.update() to synchronize.

Events

PackChangedPre and PackChanged can be used for post-install or post-update hooks:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd('PackChanged', {
  callback = function(ev)
    if ev.data.spec.name == 'nvim-treesitter' then
      vim.system({ 'make' }, { cwd = ev.data.path })
    end
  end,
})

---

2. LSP improvements

Neovim 0.12 expands built-in LSP support significantly.

Native config and enable flow

The recommended built-in pattern is:

vim.lsp.config['lua_ls'] = {
  cmd = { 'lua-language-server' },
  filetypes = { 'lua' },
  root_markers = { { '.luarc.json', '.luarc.jsonc' }, '.git' },
}

vim.lsp.enable('lua_ls')

You can check whether it is attached with:

:checkhealth vim.lsp

New defaults and built-in mappings

Neovim now provides these global LSP mappings by default:

• gra → code actions

• gri → implementations

• grn → rename

• grr → references

• grt → type definition

• grx → run codelens

• gO → document symbols

• Ctrl-S in Insert mode → signature help

gx also handles textDocument/documentLink when the server supports it.

Newly supported or improved capabilities

0.12 adds or improves support for:

• textDocument/selectionRange

• textDocument/inlineCompletion

• textDocument/linkedEditingRange

• textDocument/documentLink

• textDocument/onTypeFormatting

• textDocument/semanticTokens/range for viewport-only semantic tokens

• workspace/codeLens/refresh

selectionRange fallback

If Treesitter is not active, visual-mode an / in selection falls back to LSP selectionRange.

Code lens and other features are not always on automatically

The docs explicitly note that some features may need to be enabled manually depending on your setup, including:

• code lens

• linked editing

• inlay hints

• inline completion

:lsp

Neovim 0.12 includes a built-in :lsp command for interactive client management.

---

3. Native insert-mode auto-completion

Neovim 0.12 adds the new 'autocomplete' option:

vim.o.autocomplete = true

This enables built-in insert-mode auto-completion without a third-party completion UI plugin.

Other completion-related additions

'complete' gained new flags:

• F{func} → complete using a named function

• F → complete using 'completefunc'

• o → complete using 'omnifunc'

It also supports limiting matches per source:

vim.o.complete = ".^5,t^3,w"

Useful popup menu options:

vim.o.pumborder = 'rounded'
vim.o.pummaxwidth = 40
vim.o.completeopt = 'menu,menuone,noselect'

Note that nearest is now a valid completeopt behavior for proximity-based sorting.

---

4. UI changes

Experimental ui2

Neovim 0.12 introduces ui2, an experimental redesign of the core messages and command-line UI.

Enable it with:

require('vim._core.ui2').enable()

What it changes:

• avoids many “Press ENTER” interruptions

• avoids delays from warnings like W10

• highlights the command line as you type

• exposes the pager as a regular buffer + window

Because it is explicitly marked experimental, it is best treated as something to try, not something to assume is stable in every workflow yet.

:restart

:restart

This restarts Neovim and reattaches all UIs.

:connect

:connect /tmp/nvim.sock

This dynamically connects the current UI to a server address.

Busy status

The 'busy' buffer status is shown in the default statusline using the symbol ◐.

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5. Default statusline improvements

The default statusline is more useful in 0.12 and can show:

• diagnostic counts

• progress/status information

• busy state

• terminal exit information

Two notable helpers are:

vim.diagnostic.status()
vim.lsp.status()

If you already maintain a custom statusline, these APIs make it easier to integrate built-in diagnostics and LSP progress.

---

6. New Lua APIs worth knowing

vim.net.request()

Neovim now includes a built-in HTTP helper:

local res = vim.net.request('https://api.github.com/repos/neovim/neovim')
print(res.body)

vim.fs.ext()

print(vim.fs.ext('init.lua'))       -- lua
print(vim.fs.ext('archive.tar.gz')) -- gz

vim.list.unique()

local deduped = vim.list.unique({ 1, 2, 2, 3, 1 })

vim.list.bisect()

local idx = vim.list.bisect({ 10, 20, 30, 40 }, 25)

Other useful Lua additions

• vim.hl.range() now allows multiple timed highlights

• vim.tbl_extend() and vim.tbl_deep_extend() can take a function as conflict behavior

• vim.version.intersect() computes version-range intersections

• Iter:take() and Iter:skip() can accept predicates

• Iter:peek() works for all iterator types

• Iter:unique() deduplicates iterator output

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7. Built-in plugins

:Undotree

:packadd nvim.undotree
:Undotree

This adds a built-in visual undo-tree navigator.

:DiffTool

:packadd nvim.difftool
:DiffTool path/to/dir1 path/to/dir2

This compares directories and files.

tohtml is now opt-in

:packadd nvim.tohtml
:TOhtml

tohtml is no longer loaded by default.

---

8. Treesitter changes

Markdown highlighting by default

Treesitter-based Markdown highlighting is enabled by default.

Built-in incremental selection

Neovim 0.12 adds built-in node-based selection:

• v then an → select outward

• v then in → select inward

• v then ]n → next sibling

• v then [n → previous sibling

This is especially useful if you want structural selection without relying on extra plugins.

Breaking change: get_parser()

vim.treesitter.get_parser() no longer throws on failure. It now returns nil when it cannot create a parser.

Old assumption:

local parser = vim.treesitter.get_parser(bufnr)

Safer 0.12 pattern:

local parser = vim.treesitter.get_parser(bufnr)
if parser then
  -- use parser
end

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9. Diagnostics changes

Major breaking change: diagnostic signs

Diagnostic signs can no longer be configured with :sign-define or sign_define().

You must configure them through vim.diagnostic.config().

Example:

local sev = vim.diagnostic.severity

vim.diagnostic.config({
  severity_sort = true,
  signs = {
    text = {
      [sev.ERROR] = 'E',
      [sev.WARN]  = 'W',
      [sev.INFO]  = 'I',
      [sev.HINT]  = 'H',
    },
  },
})

Other diagnostic notes

• vim.diagnostic.disable() and vim.diagnostic.is_disabled() were removed

• the legacy signature of vim.diagnostic.enable() is no longer supported

• vim.diagnostic.status() is useful for statuslines

---

10. New editor commands and behaviors

New commands

• :restart → restart Neovim and reattach UIs

• :connect {addr} → connect current UI to a server

• :iput → like :put, but adjusts indent

• :retab -indentonly → retab only leading whitespace

• :uniq → deduplicate lines in the current buffer

• :wall ++p → write all buffers and create missing parent directories

• :help! → help lookup with smarter guessing

:source with a range can detect Lua

When a selected range contains a Lua code block, Neovim can detect and execute it as Lua.

Search completion

'wildchar' now enables completion in search contexts such as /, ?, :g, :v, and :vimgrep.

---

11. Changed defaults

Some defaults changed in 0.12:

• 'shelltemp' now defaults to false

• 'diffopt' now includes improved defaults such as indent-heuristic and inline:char

• 'shada' excludes /tmp/ and /private/ paths by default

• terminal 'scrollback' maximum increased to 1,000,000

Insert-mode Ctrl-R changed

Ctrl-R in Insert mode now inserts register contents literally by default.

If you relied on the older behavior that interpreted special characters, you may need to adjust your workflow.

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12. Terminal improvements

Neovim 0.12 improves terminal behavior in several ways:

• support for synchronized output (DEC private mode 2026)

• support for clearing terminal scrollback via CSI 3 J

• nvim_open_term() can now be called on a non-empty buffer

• suspended PTY processes are shown as [Process suspended] and can be resumed by keypress

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13. Notable new highlight groups and events

Highlight groups

Examples include:

• DiffTextAdd

• OkMsg

• StderrMsg

• StdoutMsg

• SnippetTabstopActive

• PmenuBorder

• PmenuShadow

New events

Examples include:

• CmdlineLeavePre

• MarkSet

• SessionLoadPre

• TabClosedPre

• PackChangedPre

• PackChanged

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14. Breaking changes and migration checklist

These are the items most likely to affect existing configs or plugins.

Rename changes

• vim.diff → vim.text.diff

• semantic tokens start()/stop() usage moved to enable()

Diagnostics

• remove any :sign-define-based diagnostic sign setup

• move diagnostic sign configuration to vim.diagnostic.config()

• stop using removed functions like vim.diagnostic.disable()

Treesitter

• update code that assumes vim.treesitter.get_parser() throws on failure

Plugins

• tohtml is now opt-in

• old shellmenu plugin is removed

Providers

• Python 3.7 and 3.8 support were dropped

Options and behavior

• 'shelltemp' changed to false

• Insert-mode Ctrl-R now inserts register contents literally

---

15. Practical 0.12 config examples

Minimal modern structure

~/.config/nvim/
├── init.lua
├── nvim-pack-lock.json
└── lua/
    └── config/
        ├── init.lua
        ├── options.lua
        ├── keymaps.lua
        ├── diagnostics.lua
        ├── autocmds.lua
        └── pack.lua

init.lua

require('config')

lua/config/init.lua

require('config.options')
require('config.pack')
require('config.keymaps')
require('config.diagnostics')
require('config.autocmds')

lua/config/options.lua

vim.o.autocomplete = true
vim.o.pumborder = 'rounded'
vim.o.pummaxwidth = 40
vim.o.completeopt = 'menu,menuone,noselect,nearest'

lua/config/diagnostics.lua

local sev = vim.diagnostic.severity

vim.diagnostic.config({
  severity_sort = true,
  update_in_insert = false,
  float = {
    border = 'rounded',
    source = true,
  },
  signs = {
    text = {
      [sev.ERROR] = 'E',
      [sev.WARN]  = 'W',
      [sev.INFO]  = 'I',
      [sev.HINT]  = 'H',
    },
  },
})

lua/config/pack.lua

vim.pack.add({
  'https://github.com/sainnhe/gruvbox-material',
  'https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter',
})

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16. What you can probably remove from your config

After upgrading to 0.12, you may be able to simplify your setup by removing or rethinking:

• custom diagnostic-sign definitions based on :sign-define

• manual statusline diagnostic counters

• ad-hoc HTTP wrappers for simple requests

• third-party undotree plugins if the built-in one is enough

• plugin-manager bootstrap code if you switch to vim.pack

Whether you should remove nvim-lspconfig or a third-party completion plugin depends on how much custom behavior you want. Neovim 0.12 reduces the need for them, but it does not automatically make them obsolete for every workflow.

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Bottom line

Neovim 0.12 is a substantial release, but the most important story is not just new features. It is that more of the editor is now usable without a large stack of plugins.

The biggest practical wins are:

1. vim.pack for built-in plugin management

2. stronger built-in LSP support

3. native insert-mode auto-completion

4. cleaner diagnostics configuration

5. useful built-in UI and Lua improvements

If you upgrade, the first places to review are your plugin manager, diagnostic sign config, Treesitter parser assumptions, and any code that still uses renamed APIs.

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References

• :help news-0.12

• :help vim.pack

• :help lsp

• :help diagnostic-signs

• :help ui2

• :help deprecated-0.12