Installing minpac
Minpac should be installed as an optional plugin, in a package called minpac:
$ mkdir -p ~/.vim/pack/minpac/opt $ cd ~/.vim/pack/minpac/opt $ git clone https://github.com/k-takata/minpac.git
Add these lines to your vimrc file:
packadd minpac call minpac#init()
That’s it. Now you can use minpac to install other plugins.
Registering plugins
You can register plugins with minpac by calling the minpac#add() function. The first argument is a string representing the author/repo-name on github. The optional second argument can be a dictionary of options.
For example, add these lines to your vimrc:
call minpac#add('tpope/vim-surround') call minpac#add('k-takata/minpac', {'type':'opt'})
That registers Tim Pope’s surround plugin, as well as minpac itself. By default, minpac installs plugins to the pack/minpac/start directory. By specifying {'type': 'opt'}, you can make minpac install a plugin to the pack/minpac/opt directory.
Calling minpac#add() tells minpac that you intend to install the plugin. To actually install the plugin, you have to call the minpac#update() function. For each plugin that you’ve registered, minpac will fetch the latest version from github.
First, source your vimrc file, then call the function:
:source $MYVIMRC :call minpac#update()
You won’t see much output while the command runs. Minpac uses Vim’s job control API to fetch the plugins in the background. When finished, it prints a summary showing how many plugins were installed or updated.
Removing plugins
To uninstall a plugin, remove the line of code in your vimrc where you registered the plugin, then source your vimrc and call the minpac#clean() function.
:source $MYVIMRC :call minpac#clean()
Minpac will loop through all of the plugins in the pack/minpac/{start,opt} directories, marking for deletion any plugins that are not registered with minpac.
You will see a prompt naming each plugin to be deleted, which gives you the chance to opt out if you change your mind.
Convenience commands
As the name suggests, minpac is a minimal package manager.
It doesn’t define any commands it only defines functions, which you can execute via the :call command.
For ease of use, you can create your own commands:
command! PackUpdate call minpac#update() command! PackClean call minpac#clean()
Instead of :call minpac#update() you can now run :PackUpdate to do the same thing.
How I use minpac
I like to specify my plugins in a separate file called packages.vim, which starts like this:
command! PackUpdate packadd minpac | source $MYVIMRC | redraw | call minpac#update() command! PackClean packadd minpac | source $MYVIMRC | call minpac#clean() if !exists('*minpac#init') finish endif call minpac#init() call minpac#add('k-takata/minpac', {'type': 'opt'}) call minpac#add('tpope/surround') " ...
My vimrc file contains this line, which loads the packages.vim file:
source ~/.vim/packages.vim
This is a variation of the method described in the documentation for loading minpac on demand.
With this technique, minpac doesn’t load when Vim starts up.
It only loads when you call either :PackUpdate or :PackClean.
Pretty cool!
Further reading
Here’s an implementation detail which I find interesting: minpac uses Prabir Shrestha’s async.vim to run the update/clean jobs. The job control API differs between Neovim and Vim 8, which is a pain if you want to write plugins that work in both. The async.vim plugin normalizes these APIs, taking out the hassle.
