Modern Vim

Tip 21

Avoiding Nested Neovim Instances

Any command that you can launch in an external shell can also be run in a terminal buffer. That includes the nvim command itself, meaning you can start a new instance of Neovim inside an existing instance. This scenario is best avoided. In this tip, you’ll learn how the neovim-remote tool allows you to open files in the existing Neovim instance. You’ll also see how to set up a shell alias to prevent you from accidentally creating nested instances of Neovim.

How Can Neovim Run Inside of Neovim?

Use this command to start a fresh instance of Neovim and start a terminal buffer inside:

$ nvim +terminal ...