Installation and startup¶

Installation¶

Run one of the following.

nix run github:mm1995tk/shijimi-editor/release   # run it right away without installing
nix profile install github:mm1995tk/shijimi-editor/release
go install github.com/mm1995tk/shijimi-editor/cmd/shj@latest      # installs the shj command
go install github.com/mm1995tk/shijimi-editor/cmd/shijimi@latest  # installs the same thing as shijimi
npm install -g shijimi-editor                                     # installs both shj and shijimi (Linux and macOS)

All of them get the latest release: the Nix commands follow the release branch, go install takes the newest tag, and npm takes the binaries published at release time. Unreleased changes on main are not included.

To try the unreleased changes on main, install the nightly build. It installs as shj-nightly (and shijimi-nightly) next to shj, reads ~/.config/shijimi-editor-nightly/ (Configuration files), uses its own socket directory, and has the [experimental] settings (features being tried out) on by default. Nix builds it from the newest main at install time; npm and a GitHub pre-release are planned.

nix run github:mm1995tk/shijimi-editor#shj-nightly
nix profile install github:mm1995tk/shijimi-editor#shj-nightly

To install it with home-manager, see Nix and home-manager.

Requirements¶

shijimi alone is enough for editing. The following features need other commands.

Feature	Required command
Comparing with the base of a pull request in diff mode	gh. Run `gh auth login` first
Git status in the file tree, diff mode	`git`
LSP	A language server for each language (`gopls`, `rust-analyzer`, and so on)
mermaid diagrams	mermaid-cli (`mmdc`)
Writing the configuration in Nix	`nix`
Copying to and pasting from the system clipboard (`Space y` / `Space p`)	`wl-copy` and `wl-paste` on Wayland, `xclip` or `xsel` on X11, `pbcopy` and `pbpaste` on macOS (included with macOS). If none is available, only shijimi's internal clipboard is used
Opening the URL under the cursor in an external browser (`Space o`)	`xdg-open` on Linux, `open` on macOS (included with macOS)
Icons in the file tree	A terminal configured with a Nerd Font

Starting¶

shj            # open the current directory
shj ./src      # open a directory
shj main.go    # edit only that file (single-file mode)

shijimi works the same as shj (installing with Nix gives you both).

When you give it a file, shijimi opens in single-file mode, which edits only that file. It is meant to be called from $EDITOR. It does not start the file tree, LSP, terminal, diff mode, suggestions panel or the Claude Code IDE integration, and it does not use tabs. When you close the file with :q or :wq (Ctrl+W or Ctrl+Q in VS Code mode), shijimi exits, so the caller can wait for it to finish and move on. A path that does not exist is opened as an empty buffer, and the file is created when you save. Giving a directory behaves as before.

Quitting¶

Press Ctrl+Q. In Helix mode you can also quit with :q.

Files with the same name as a subcommand

When the first argument is diff or skill, it is treated as a subcommand. To open a file with the same name, write it like ./diff. The subcommands are described in AI agent integration.