Is there a "best practices" style memo for use in NixOS?

[bogorad]

Using NixOS. Neovim and all plugins are loaded into nix store, Lazy never installs anything, it's just for lazy-loading plugins. I have a lot of plugins, 99% work fine. After testing render-markdown on plain ubuntu (and windows) I decided to install it in NixOS. Tried different versions, same error (different line numbers).

Checkhealth says:

render-markdown:   require("render-markdown.health").check()

render-markdown.nvim [version] ~
- OK plugin 8.3.1
- OK neovim >= 0.11

render-markdown.nvim [configuration] ~
- OK valid
- ERROR Failed to run healthcheck for "render-markdown" plugin. Exception:
  ...lugin-render-markdown.nvim/lua/render-markdown/state.lua:110: attempt to index local 'config' (a nil value)

[MeanderingProgrammer]

Lazy loading is definitely finicky (regardless of OS), which is why I do not recommend it in general, too many foot guns.

If you disable all of the lazy loading for this plugin do you still run into these errors?

When you have lazy loading enabled can you try triggering the lazy load condition, probably by opening a markdown buffer, then running checkhealth? There could be something going on between the initial load and the health check logic, though I'm not really sure what it would be.

In terms of NixOS best practices the only thing this plugin needs is for your treesitter parsers and highlight queries to be on your runtimepath before the plugin tries to render a buffer. Optionally you also need an icon provider like mini.icons or nvim-web-devicons, but that's just for code blocks. How you accomplish this is up to you, using lazy.nvim to enforce dependencies are sourced in the right order should be totally fine. So nothing really OS specific.

The errors if anything are tied to the lazy loading setup. Maybe NixOS combined with lazy loading triggers some edge case, like if it's somehow slower to load the modules, but that's a total guess.

The error you're getting in particular is confusing. Somehow this variable is nil:

render-markdown.nvim/lua/render-markdown/state.lua

Line 106 in dfc1299

local config = M.config

Which really shouldn't be possible since it gets set as part of the plugin directory. So the checkhealth is somehow running before the plugin directory, which I didn't think was possible, very confusing.

[bogorad]

this is weird. this config works perfectly well under ubuntu and win10/win11 but fails under nixos. any idea how to enable additional diagnostics? (lazy loads everyrhing in lua/plugins). all files seem to be present and in path.

return
{
  'MeanderingProgrammer/render-markdown.nvim',
  lazy = false,
  dependencies = { 'nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter', 'nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons' }, -- if you prefer nvim-web-devicons
  ---@module 'render-markdown'
  ---@type render.md.UserConfig
  opts = {
    render_modes = { 'n', 'c', 't' },
  },
  config = function()
    require('render-markdown').setup({ latex = { enabled = false } })
    require('nvim-treesitter.configs').setup({
      highlight = { enable = true },
      ensure_installed = { "markdown", "markdown_inline" },
    })
  end
}
``

[bogorad]

win11:

==============================================================================
render-markdown:                     require("render-markdown.health").check()

render-markdown.nvim [version] ~
- OK plugin 8.3.2
- OK neovim >= 0.11

render-markdown.nvim [configuration] ~
- OK valid

render-markdown.nvim [treesitter] ~
- OK markdown: parser installed
- OK markdown_inline: parser installed
- OK latex: parser not installed
- OK html: parser installed
- OK markdown: highlight enabled

render-markdown.nvim [icons] ~
- OK using: nvim-web-devicons

render-markdown.nvim [executables] ~
- OK latex2text: not installed

render-markdown.nvim [conflicts] ~
- OK headlines: not installed
- OK markview: not installed
- OK obsidian: not installed

nixos:

render-markdown:                     require("render-markdown.health").check()

render-markdown.nvim [version] ~
- OK plugin 8.3.1
- OK neovim >= 0.11

render-markdown.nvim [configuration] ~
- OK valid
- ERROR Failed to run healthcheck for "render-markdown" plugin. Exception:
  ...lugin-render-markdown.nvim/lua/render-markdown/state.lua:110: attempt to index local 'config' (a nil value)

[MeanderingProgrammer]

If you open a markdown file does the plugin work, or do you get an error message?

Can you try swapping nvim-treesitter and render-markdown setup calls?

return {
  'MeanderingProgrammer/render-markdown.nvim',
  lazy = false,
  dependencies = { 'nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter', 'nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons' },
  config = function()
    require('nvim-treesitter.configs').setup({
      highlight = { enable = true },
      ensure_installed = { "markdown", "markdown_inline" },
    })
    require('render-markdown').setup({ latex = { enabled = false } })
  end
}

[bogorad]

that did the trick, thank you!

correction: in nixos i don't need, since all grammars are pre-loaded.

      ensure_installed = { "markdown", "markdown_inline" },

render-markdown:                     require("render-markdown.health").check()

render-markdown.nvim [version] ~
- OK plugin 8.3.1
- OK neovim >= 0.11

render-markdown.nvim [configuration] ~
- OK valid

render-markdown.nvim [treesitter] ~
- OK markdown: parser installed
- OK markdown_inline: parser installed
- OK latex: parser installed
- OK html: parser installed
- OK markdown: highlight enabled

render-markdown.nvim [icons] ~
- OK using: mini.icons

render-markdown.nvim [executables] ~
- OK latex2text: not installed

render-markdown.nvim [conflicts] ~
- OK headlines: not installed
- OK markview: not installed
- OK obsidian: not installed

I also had to improve my neovim/treesitter config, specifically, as advised by Grok, added neovim's parsers' path to my generated init.lua. In case anyone esle has this problem when using it with lazy in nixos.

    extraLuaConfig = ''
      vim.g.mapleader = " "
      vim.opt.runtimepath:append("${pkgs.neovim-unwrapped}/lib/nvim/parser")
      require("lazy").setup({
        spec = {
          { import = "plugins" },
        },
        performance = {
          reset_packpath = false,
          rtp = { reset = false },
        },
        dev = {
          path = "${pkgs.vimUtils.packDir config.programs.neovim.finalPackage.passthru.packpathDirs}/pack/myNeovimPackages/start",
          patterns = { "" },
        },
        install = { missing = false },
      })
      require("config")
    '';