Building from source
Requirements:
Clone the Helix GitHub repository into a directory of your choice. The
examples in this documentation assume installation into either ~/src/ on
Linux and macOS, or %userprofile%\src\ on Windows.
- The Rust toolchain
- The Git version control system
- A C++14 compatible compiler to build the tree-sitter grammars, for example GCC or Clang
If you are using the musl-libc standard library instead of glibc the following environment variable must be set during the build to ensure tree-sitter grammars can be loaded correctly:
RUSTFLAGS="-C target-feature=-crt-static"
-
Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/helix-editor/helix cd helix -
Compile from source:
cargo install --path helix-term --lockedThis command will create the
hxexecutable and construct the tree-sitter grammars in the localruntimefolder.
💡 If you do not want to fetch or build grammars, set an environment variable
HELIX_DISABLE_AUTO_GRAMMAR_BUILD
💡 Tree-sitter grammars can be fetched and compiled if not pre-packaged. Fetch grammars with
hx --grammar fetchand compile them withhx --grammar build. This will install them in theruntimedirectory within the user's helix config directory (more details below).
Configuring Helix's runtime files
Linux and macOS
The runtime directory is one below the Helix source, so either export a
HELIX_RUNTIME environment variable to point to that directory and add it to
your ~/.bashrc or equivalent:
export HELIX_RUNTIME=~/src/helix/runtime
Or, create a symbolic link:
ln -Ts $PWD/runtime ~/.config/helix/runtime
If the above command fails to create a symbolic link because the file exists either move ~/.config/helix/runtime to a new location or delete it, then run the symlink command above again.
Windows
Either set the HELIX_RUNTIME environment variable to point to the runtime files using the Windows setting (search for
Edit environment variables for your account) or use the setx command in
Cmd:
setx HELIX_RUNTIME "%userprofile%\source\repos\helix\runtime"
💡
%userprofile%resolves to your user directory likeC:\Users\Your-Name\for example.
Or, create a symlink in %appdata%\helix\ that links to the source code directory:
| Method | Command |
|---|---|
| PowerShell | New-Item -ItemType Junction -Target "runtime" -Path "$Env:AppData\helix\runtime" |
| Cmd | cd %appdata%\helix mklink /D runtime "%userprofile%\src\helix\runtime" |
💡 On Windows, creating a symbolic link may require running PowerShell or Cmd as an administrator.
Multiple runtime directories
When Helix finds multiple runtime directories it will search through them for files in the following order:
runtime/sibling directory to$CARGO_MANIFEST_DIRdirectory (this is intended for developing and testing helix only).runtime/subdirectory of OS-dependent helix user config directory.$HELIX_RUNTIME- Distribution-specific fallback directory (set at compile time—not run time—
with the
HELIX_DEFAULT_RUNTIMEenvironment variable) runtime/subdirectory of path to Helix executable.
This order also sets the priority for selecting which file will be used if multiple runtime directories have files with the same name.
Note to packagers
If you are making a package of Helix for end users, to provide a good out of
the box experience, you should set the HELIX_DEFAULT_RUNTIME environment
variable at build time (before invoking cargo build) to a directory which
will store the final runtime files after installation. For example, say you want
to package the runtime into /usr/lib/helix/runtime. The rough steps a build
script could follow are:
export HELIX_DEFAULT_RUNTIME=/usr/lib/helix/runtimecargo build --profile opt --locked --path helix-termcp -r runtime $BUILD_DIR/usr/lib/helix/cp target/opt/hx $BUILD_DIR/usr/bin/hx
This way the resulting hx binary will always look for its runtime directory in
/usr/lib/helix/runtime if the user has no custom runtime in ~/.config/helix
or HELIX_RUNTIME.
Validating the installation
To make sure everything is set up as expected you should run the Helix health check:
hx --health
For more information on the health check results refer to Health check.
Configure the desktop shortcut
If your desktop environment supports the
XDG desktop menu
you can configure Helix to show up in the application menu by copying the
provided .desktop and icon files to their correct folders:
cp contrib/Helix.desktop ~/.local/share/applications
cp contrib/helix.png ~/.icons # or ~/.local/share/icons
It is recommended to convert the links in the .desktop file to absolute paths to avoid potential problems:
sed -i -e "s|Exec=hx %F|Exec=$(readlink -f ~/.cargo/bin/hx) %F|g" \
-e "s|Icon=helix|Icon=$(readlink -f ~/.icons/helix.png)|g" ~/.local/share/applications/Helix.desktop
To use another terminal than the system default, you can modify the .desktop
file. For example, to use kitty:
sed -i "s|Exec=hx %F|Exec=kitty hx %F|g" ~/.local/share/applications/Helix.desktop
sed -i "s|Terminal=true|Terminal=false|g" ~/.local/share/applications/Helix.desktop