oz

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A terminal text editor written in Zig.

Features

Editing (vim-style)

• Six modes: Normal / Insert / Visual / Visual Line / Visual Block / Command
• Full motions with counts: hjkl, w/e/b/ge, ^/0/$, gg/G, {/}, %, f/F/t/T, Ctrl-u/d/f/b
• Text objects, surround, comments, alignment, EasyMotion (s / <leader>f), multi-cursor (Ctrl+n)
• Undo/redo (grouped + branch semantics), register semantics (linewise/charwise yank & put) with system clipboard interop (OSC52 + pbcopy/wl-copy/xclip/xsel, nvim clipboard=unnamedplus style)
• Keyboard macros: q{reg} records (q stops), @{reg} replays with count support (3@a, @@); in Visual mode @ runs the macro once per selected line (:'<,'>normal! semantics); recording @x status indicator
• Splits (:sp/:vs + Ctrl-w family), buffer tab bar, relative line numbers, code folding

Syntax & UI

• tree-sitter syntax highlighting (multiple bundled grammars), rainbow brackets, indent guides + scope highlight animation
• Inline markdown rendering: headings/bold/italic/links/code, fence code highlighted in its own language, markup concealed off the cursor line, checkbox icons, heading/code-block background bands
• Multiple themes (<leader>sp theme picker with live preview; the choice persists automatically — no config or env var needed): kanagawa-wave, kanagawa-dragon, catppuccin (latte / frappe / macchiato / mocha), tokyonight (night / storm / moon), everforest, onedark, melange, doom-one, sonokai-shusia, flexoki-dark, flexoki-light
• Soft-wrap: lines wider than the window wrap onto continuation rows (grapheme/CJK-width aware)
• Large-file degradation: highlighting turns off above 100 KB to stay smooth

LSP

• Async attach (never blocks startup); works with zls and other common servers (auto-detects mason install paths)
• Hover (K), goto definition/declaration/references/implementation (gd/gD/gr/gI), signature help (gs)
• Diagnostics gutter marks + ]d/[d jumps + diagnostics list (<leader>sd)
• Auto-completion menu + ghost text (<C-n>/trigger characters), inlay hints (<leader>ti)
• Rename (<leader>rn), format (<leader>lf), document outline (<leader>o)

Navigation & search

• Fuzzy pickers: files (<leader>sf), grep (<leader>st), buffers (<leader>sb), recent files (<leader>sr), keymaps (<leader>sk)
• File tree (<leader>e toggle, <leader>E locate current file) rooted at the workspace's project directory
• In-buffer search (/, ?, n/N)

Workspaces (Doom-Emacs style)

• Swap-on-switch workspaces: SPC TAB n new / . pick / r rename / d delete / x clear session / [ ] prev · next
• Independent buffers, window layout and file tree per workspace; opening a file already open in another workspace is refused (no double-edit)
• The file tree and fuzzy file picker follow each workspace's project root — the opened file's nearest .git directory, else its own directory
• Status bar shows the current workspace name; a snacks-style dashboard greets a fresh workspace

Git

• Gutter diff marks, ]c/[c hunk jumps, <leader>hs/<leader>hr stage/reset, <leader>hp hunk preview
• Current-line blame ghost text (shows 1s after the cursor settles, <leader>tb toggles), <leader>lg floating lazygit
• Branch name in the status bar

Terminal

• Embedded terminal (Linux / macOS): Alt+r floating / Alt+w bottom / Alt+e right; Esc in the terminal returns to Normal mode

Build & run

Requires Zig 0.16.0:

zig build                                    # dev build
zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast -Dstrip     # release build (daily driver)
zig build test                               # unit tests
zig build e2e                                # pty end-to-end tests (Linux only for now)

Run: oz [file[:line]]

Performance

Methodology: pty-driven with screen reconstruction, same machine (Apple Silicon, macOS), same files, median of 3 runs.

On par with or faster than nvim in every scenario. Key design choices: mmap-backed lazy file loading, PieceTable with incremental line index, incremental tree-sitter parsing, async LSP handshake + writer thread + incremental sync, atomic saves (temp file + rename).

Download

Prebuilt binaries for Linux (x86_64/arm64) and macOS (x86_64/arm64) are attached to each GitHub Release — download, extract and run, no Zig needed. To build from source see "Build & Run" above.

License

MIT © niT-Tin

Maintenance

A personal project maintained in spare time — please set expectations accordingly:

• Features are driven by my own daily use; bug reports with repro steps are very welcome;
• Pull requests are reviewed and merged, but on my own schedule;
• Keybindings / APIs may still change during 0.x;
• A star is the nicest encouragement.