#March 2026

Quick reminder of a comment to set vim file type (but this catch 22 - vim needs to know the file type to know to parse a comment to know to apply the file type comment)

Apparently vim 'modelines' helps with the chicken and egg by scanning first few lines for vim style comments

# vim: set ft=yaml sw=2 ts=2 et :

#Command-line window (q:)

q: opens an editable buffer of command history — not just for searching, you can actually edit commands in it like a normal buffer (yank, paste, modify), then hit Enter on a line to execute. Also accessible via <C-f> from the : prompt.

#Completion broken again (autopairs referencing nvim-cmp)

Completion stopped working again. Previous investigation (see "Nvim glitching after zellij layout change" above) found lspsaga was the cause - disabled it, fixed it.

This time: autopairs.lua was never updated when migrating from nvim-cmp to blink.cmp (Oct 2025). It still had dependencies = { 'hrsh7th/nvim-cmp' } and called require 'cmp' on InsertEnter. Since nvim-cmp is no longer installed, this errors every time you enter insert mode, potentially breaking blink.cmp completion.

Fix: removed the nvim-cmp dependency and require 'cmp' integration from autopairs.lua. Autopairs still works standalone, just no longer auto-adds () after selecting a function from completion (blink.cmp handles this differently anyway).

#Zellij edge detection + hyprland flash (TODO)

Requirement: when moving focus hits an edge (no pane in that direction), flash the hyprland border red (like move-focus.sh does for hyprland windows).

Pain points:

• zellij bind only supports a single action — can't chain "get pane id → move focus → check pane id → flash"
• vim-zellij-nav wasm plugin handles nvim detection internally, can't wrap it with a script
• smart-splits.nvim at_edge = 'stop' is broken — the zellij mux hardcodes Direction.left regardless of direction arg
• zellij plugin Key events only fire when the plugin's own pane is focused, not globally

Proposed solution: custom zellij wasm plugin move-focus-jol:

1. Receives MessagePlugin with direction (like vim-zellij-nav)
2. Gets pane id → calls move_focus → checks pane id again
3. If unchanged → run_command("hyprctl", ...) to flash border
4. Fork vim-zellij-nav to call move-focus-jol instead of move_focus directly
5. Update nvim zellij-nav.nvim to message move-focus-jol instead of zellij action move-focus
6. Everything funnels through one plugin that owns edge detection

#Bash parameter expansion (suffix removal)

The single % is the shortest match from end of string operator, whereas %% is large suffix removal operator.

➜ joelyboy dev-setup (main) ✗ file="photo.backup.tar.gz"
➜ joelyboy dev-setup (main) ✗ echo ${file%%.*}
photo
➜ joelyboy dev-setup (main) ✗ echo ${file%%g}
photo.backup.tar.gz
➜ joelyboy dev-setup (main) ✗ echo ${file%%g*}
photo.backup.tar.
➜ joelyboy dev-setup (main) ✗ echo ${file%%a*}
photo.b
➜ joelyboy dev-setup (main) ✗ echo ${file%a*}
photo.backup.t
➜ joelyboy dev-setup (main) ✗

In this mode . is a literal dot, not a regexp dot for any char

1. Notice how nothing matched on the file%%g: must match to end of string
2. file%%g* is greedy so goes up to the gz ad the end
3. file%a* so goes for the first a in backup

#Vim Dadbod UI

Ok wow i found something today i cannot believe it took me this long to find?

<leader>S

whilst in vim dadbod mode will only execute selected text as a query - kind of like filip does in DBeaver - which is awesome!

#Opening a blank buffer

• :enew — opens a new blank buffer in the current window (mnemonic: edit new)
• :new — opens a new blank buffer in a horizontal split
• :vnew — opens a new blank buffer in a vertical split

#Vim: Redirect command output to register

:new | put =execute('SomeCommand') — this opens a new scratch buffer and pastes the output of any ex command into it. Breakdown:

• :new — opens a new empty split
• put = — puts the result of an expression into the buffer
• execute('...') — runs an ex command and captures its output as a string

So execute('Fidget history') runs :Fidget history and returns the output text, then put = pastes it into the buffer where you can search with /.

Works with any command, e.g. :new | put =execute('messages'), :new | put =execute('map')

Ok so (ME not claude as of now...)

| is not actually what i thought like a pipe in bash, it is actually just like ; in bash (see :h :bar in vim)

So in this case we are just saying :new to open a new buffer and THEN :put to dump the output of the register

Gotcha: | doesn't work with all commands. Some commands treat | as part of their own arguments instead of as a command separator. User-defined commands (from plugins) do this by default unless the plugin author explicitly opted in to | separation with -bar (see :h command-bar). So:

:OutlineFocus | OutlineClose   " BROKEN — OutlineClose is passed as an arg to OutlineFocus

Fix: use <cmd>...<cr> chaining in a keymap, or just use separate commands. In ex mode, there's no clean workaround — run them separately:

:OutlineFocus
:OutlineClose

Or in a keymap:

vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>X", function()
  vim.cmd("OutlineFocus")
  vim.cmd("OutlineClose")
end)

e.g.

let @b='pls'
:put b

dumps 'pls' into current buffer

i did try this

:put = execute('echo "hi there"')

BUT echo doesn't return to a buffer so it wouldn't work. WAIT IGNORE. just needed to escape the " with

:put = execute('echo \"hi there\"')

....or...

:put = 'hi there'

#Vim registers and the " prefix

Registers in vim are accessed with " (double quote) in normal mode.

Special registers:

to see help can use vims special 'quote' like :h quote= is equivalent to :h "=

Accessing registers — " vs @:

Why quote= in vim help? Vim help spells " as quote in its help tags, so :h quote= means "help for the "= register", :h quotea for "a, etc.

#GH issues

I should really learn this.... so search for issues

have to specify --repo then just gh search issues...

➜ joelyboy dev-setup (main) ✗ gh search issues "fuzzy search" --repo 'folke/which-key.nvim'

Showing 1 of 1 issues

REPO                  ID    TITLE                                  LABELS  UPDATED
folke/which-key.nvim  #648  bug: Which Key seems to affect keymap  bug     about 1 year ago
➜ joelyboy dev-setup (main) ✗

Ok so it turned out the relevant issue i was looking for is a discussion (here) and gh api doesnt support discussions....

#Disk space cheat sheet

To list all block devices (the /dev/xxx names for cfdisk/parted):

lsblk

Why nix-tree shows 30GB but /nix/store is 122GB: nix-tree only shows the closure of the current system profile — the set of packages reachable from this generation. /nix/store also contains old generations, cached build deps, devenv shells, and anything not yet garbage collected. Run sudo nix-collect-garbage -d to prune old generations (careful: removes rollback ability).

Does the math add up? (March 2026)

/home          =  94 GB
/nix/store     = 122 GB
swap file      =  32 GB  (configured in nixos-base.nix)
/var + other   = ~49 GB  (postgres data, logs, docker leftovers, tmp, etc.)
               --------
total          ≈ 297 GB  ✓ (matches df -H)

#Neovim display corruption on terminal resize

Ghost lines, black spots, misaligned rendering when resizing (fullscreen toggle, zellij pane resize).

Only happens inside zellij — confirmed no issue in bare kitty terminal.

Cause: Neovim's CSI 2026 (termsync / synchronized output) misimplementation conflicts with zellij's terminal emulation layer. Zellij acts as terminal-within-a-terminal and must relay escape sequences — mismatch causes artifacts. Zellij creator confirmed: "99% a misimplementation of CSI 2026 by nvim." (neovim#29427, zellij#426, zellij#3415)

Fix — disable termsync in nvim config:

vim.o.termsync = false

Other things that help:

• Set TERM=xterm-256color inside zellij (avoid xterm-kitty etc)
• Ctrl-L to manually force redraw
• If using noice.nvim, set notify stages to "static" (zellij#3208)

#Yazi image/video previews black in zellij

Yazi mediainfo plugin shows black screen for both image and video previews.

Only happens inside zellij — confirmed previews work fine in bare kitty terminal.

Cause: Likely zellij doesn't support passthrough for the kitty graphics protocol, which yazi uses to render inline images. Zellij's terminal emulation layer can't relay the graphics escape sequences properly. (zellij#1796)

#Helix — vim equivalent workflows

Helix is selection-first (select then act) vs vim's verb-first (act then motion). Here's the mapping for common vim workflows:

Key mental shift: in helix you select first, then act. So "delete 3 lines" is xxd not 3dd. Takes getting used to but means you always see what you're about to affect before doing it.

#lazydev.nvim — what it actually does

Without lazydev, lua_ls only knows Lua syntax — it has no idea vim exists as a global, so you get Undefined global 'vim' warnings and zero completions for vim.*.

What lazydev does: tells lua_ls to index Neovim's bundled type definitions ($VIMRUNTIME/lua/vim/) so it learns about vim.api.*, vim.keymap.*, vim.lsp.*, etc. Also loads types for installed plugins.

The luv/luvit thing: Neovim's event loop is built on libuv (same C library that powers Node.js — async I/O, timers, filesystem). Neovim exposes it to Lua as vim.uv. The { path = '${3rd}/luv/library', words = { 'vim%.uv' } } in the config just conditionally loads the type defs for vim.uv.* only when you actually use it.

#March 2026

#Zellij + Image Preview (Yazi) — Why It's Broken

The problem: yazi image preview works in zellij but large or wide images corrupt the entire zellij render — the screen becomes garbled and unusable.

Root cause: Zellij acts as a middleman for terminal graphics. When an image's pixel dimensions exceed the pane boundaries, the sixel/kitty image data bleeds past what zellij expects, corrupting its internal screen buffer. Zellij redraws fail to recover because the image escape sequences have already overwritten cell state. This is a known zellij limitation — multiplexers have to parse and clip image output, and zellij's clipping is incomplete for oversized images.

Current status: images preview fine until a large image is selected, then zellij's rendering breaks. This is a zellij-side bug with oversized image clipping. No clean workaround yet — can mitigate by setting max preview dimensions in yazi or waiting for a zellij fix.

Possible mitigation — cap yazi preview size in yazi.toml:

[preview]
max_width = 600
max_height = 400

Related GitHub issues:

#Zellij — Moving Panes into Stacks

The problem: no obvious keybinding to move an existing pane into an existing stack in zellij.

Solution: use zellij action stack-panes CLI action — takes pane IDs and combines them into a stack.

zellij action stack-panes -- <id1> <id2>

Getting pane IDs: need zellij action list-panes (added in v0.44.0), which isn't available on NixOS yet. Until then, zellij action dump-layout can be parsed for pane IDs as a fallback, or use multi-select (Alt+p on each pane) to stack interactively.

#LibreOffice Calc — Reloading a File

To reload the current file in LibreOffice Calc: press Alt+F to open the File menu, then press Down arrow until you reach Reload, then press Enter.

#SteelSeries Arctis 7 — Mic Not Showing Up

The problem: mic input wasn't appearing as an available source.

Solution: open pavucontrol → Configuration tab → select Game Output + Game Input profile for the SteelSeries Arctis 7.

Why this works: USB audio devices like the Arctis 7 expose multiple endpoints (output-only, output+input, chat, game, etc). PipeWire/PulseAudio represents these combos as profiles on the sound card. Profiles are entirely host-side — the device just advertises available USB audio endpoints, and the audio server decides which to activate. If the selected profile doesn't include a capture endpoint, no mic source gets created. Switching to a profile that includes input activates the capture endpoint and the mic appears.

Terminal equivalent:

# list cards and available profiles
pactl list cards

# set the right profile
pactl set-card-profile <card_name> output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo

# or with wireplumber
wpctl status
wpctl set-profile <device_id> <profile_index>

Profile selection is persisted in ~/.local/state/wireplumber/ (PipeWire) or ~/.config/pulse/ (PulseAudio) so it survives reboots.

#Linux Audio Debugging — Tools & Terminology

Audio stack (top to bottom):

Key terms:

Recording/playback tools tested:

Useful commands:

#Agenix - rekeying secrets after adding a new host

When you add a new host public key to secrets/secrets.nix, you need to rekey so the secret gets re-encrypted for the new recipient.

The command that actually works:

cd secrets
sudo agenix -r -i /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key

Key gotchas:

• -i wants the private SSH key of a host already in secrets.nix, NOT the .age file
• needs sudo because /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key is root-owned
• agenix -r alone fails with "no identity matched any of the recipients" — it doesn't auto-find the host key
• the error messages are completely unhelpful