defold.nvim

Batteries-included development environment for the Defold game engine, powered by Neovim

Features

• Code Hot-Reloading: Make code tweaks and see them live in Defold, no waiting.
• Defold Control from Neovim: Run Defold commands right from Neovim with custom shortcuts.
• LSP Integration: Get Defold API hints and autocomplete in Neovim’s built-in LSP.
• Dependency Annotations: Auto-load LSP annotations for your Defold dependencies.
• Debugger: Step through your code and dig into issues with ease.
• Snippets: Insert pre-made code snippets to save time.

System Requirements

Operating System

• Linux 🐧 - First class & fully supported
• MacOS 🍎 - Experimental, both ARM and Intel Macs are supported
• Windows 🪟 - Experimental

Launchers

Since Neovim is a terminal based application it has to be run through something, by default we do this through Neovide or a terminal

Note: While optional, I'd recommend you to have Neovide installed and available in your PATH

Supported Terminals

These are the terminal supported by default (when you just switch the launcher type to "terminal")

• ghostty
• kitty
• alacritty
• foot
• st

You can use any other terminal by changing the launcher options to the following:

    -- ...

    launcher = {
        type = "terminal",

        executable = "/usr/bin/my-custom-terminal",

        terminal = {
            class_argument = "--app-id=",
            run_argument = "-e",
        },
    },

    -- ...

Other

We also need some other programs available:

Linux & Mac

These should be installed by default on most repos but in case they're not, you have been warned

• lsof, ss or netstat
• curl or wget
• tar

Windows

You're in luck, powershell is surprisingly capable so there is nothing else needed

Install

Lazy.nvim

{
    "atomicptr/defold.nvim",
    lazy = false,

    -- (Optional) Required when using the debugger
    dependencies = {
        "mfussenegger/nvim-dap",
    },

    opts = {
        defold = {
            -- Automatically set defold.nvim as the default editor in Defold (default: true)
            set_default_editor = true,

            -- Automatically fetch dependencies on launch (default: true)
            auto_fetch_dependencies = true,

            -- Enable hot reloading when saving scripts in Neovim (default: true)
            hot_reload_enabled = true,
        },


        launcher = {
            -- How to run neovim "neovide" or "terminal" (default: neovide)
            type = "neovide",

            -- path to your neovim or terminal executable (optional)
            executable = nil,

            -- extra arguments passed to the `executable` (or neovide)
            extra_arguments = nil,

            -- configure how the terminal is run (optional)
            terminal = {
                -- argument to define how to set the class name of the terminal, usually something like "--class="
                class_argument = nil,

                -- argument to define how to run neovim, usually "-e"
                run_argument = nil,
            }
        },

        debugger = {
            -- Enable the debugger (default: true)
            enable = true,

            -- Use a custom executable for the debugger (default: nil)
            custom_executable = nil,

            -- Add custom arguments to the debugger (default: nil)
            custom_arguments = nil,
        },

        babashka = {
            -- Use a custom executable for babashka (default: nil)
            custom_executable = nil,
        },

        -- Force the plugin to be always enabled (even if we can't find the game.project file) (default: false)
        force_plugin_enabled = false,
    },
}

Setup

Setup Neovim

By installing and running the plugin once, Defold should automatically use Neovim as its editor. (Unless you disabled the setting above)

If you manually want to setup Defold, run :SetupDefold

Setup Debugging

For debugging we're using mobdap which is running on top of MobDebug so you need to have that available in your project.

The easiest way is using defold-mobdebug in your project.

(Read this)

And then you run use :DapNew and the game should be running

Setup Snippets

In order to use snippets you need to either have LuaSnip installed or use any other VSCode Snippet compatible plugin and set it up yourself

You can retrieve the plugin root via:

local defold = require "defold"
local root = defold.plugin_root()

Available Commands

Here's how you can interact with Defold directly from Neovim:

• :Defold This commands starts vim.ui.select to let you select a Defold command to run

• :DefoldSend <command> This command lets you send any arbitrary command directly to your Defold editor. Use this for scripting or keybindings. For example, use :DefoldSend build to trigger build & run.

• :DefoldFetch This command fetches all Defold dependencies and creates annotations for the Lua LSP. Run with bang to force re-downloading the annotations.

• :SetupDefold This commands does the required setup for Defold to use Neovim as its external editor (this will be done by default unless disabled, see config above)

Special Thanks

• astrochili/defold-annotations

License

GPLv3