I recently spent way too much time trying to get neovim plugins working. Hopefully this will keep you from staying up until 2AM.

This assumes you’re on a Linux/BSD-ish system and you know basic vi/vim/nvim commands such as how to quit out of the editor.

1. Install neovim. Even if your OS package manager has an neovim package, it may not be a recent version that works with newer plugins. I suggest using the correct package for the latest stable version
2. Install the packer plugin manager

    git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wbthomason/packer.nvim \
     ~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/packer/start/packer.nvim
   

3. Create the neovim configuration directory

    mkdir -p "${HOME}/.config/nvim/lua"
   

4. Create the plugins.lua file to load Packer

    cat <<EOF >>"${HOME}/.config/nvim/lua/plugins.lua"
    local vim = vim
    local execute = vim.api.nvim_command
    local fn = vim.fn
       
    -- ensure that packer is installed
    local install_path = fn.stdpath('data')..'/site/pack/packer/opt/packer.nvim'
       
    if fn.empty(fn.glob(install_path)) > 0 then
        execute('!git clone https://github.com/wbthomason/packer.nvim '..install_path)
        execute 'packadd packer.nvim'
    end
       
    vim.cmd('packadd packer.nvim')
    local packer = require'packer'
    local util = require'packer.util'
       
    packer.init({
      package_root = util.join_paths(vim.fn.stdpath('data'), 'site', 'pack')
    })
       
    return require('packer').startup(function()
      use 'wbthomason/packer.nvim'
       
      -- Add plugins here!
       
    end)
    EOF
   

5. Configure nvim to load the plugins.lua

    cat <<EOF >>"${HOME}/.config/nvim/init.vim"
    lua require('plugins')
    EOF
   

6. Install/update Packer and your plugins
   1. Run nvim (no file necessary)
   2. Type :PackerSync
   3. Reply y
   4. Exit nvim

You should now be able to add Packer-compatible plugins around the -- Add plugins here! comment.

If you try to execute :PackerSync and get an error, I don’t really have any debugging tips. Try to clean out your ~/.config/nvim directory and try again?