Neovim Session Manager

A Neovim plugin that use built-in :mksession to manage sessions like folders in VSCode. It allows you to save the current folder as a session to open it later. The plugin can also automatically load the last session on startup, save the current one on exit and switch between session folders.

The plugin saves the sessions in the specified folder (see configuration). The session corresponds to the working directory. If a session already exists for the current folder, it will be overwritten.

Dependencies

plenary.nvim for internal helpers.

Commands

Use the command :SessionManager[!] with one of the following arguments:

Argument	Description
`load_session`	Select and load session. (Your current session won't appear on the list).
`load_last_session`	Removes all buffers and tries to `:source` the last saved session. Returns `true` if the session was restored and `false` otherwise.
`load_current_dir_session`	Removes all buffers and tries to `:source` the last saved session of the current directory. Returns `true` if the session was restored and `false` otherwise.
`load_git_session`	When in a git repo, removes all buffers and tries to `:source` the last saved session of the git repo root directory. Returns `true` if the session was restored and `false` otherwise.
`save_current_session`	Works like `:mksession`, but saves/creates current directory as a session in `sessions_dir`.
`delete_session`	Select and delete session.
`delete_current_dir_session`	Deletes the session associated with the current directory.

When ! is specified, the modified buffers will not be saved.

Commands load_session and delete_session use vim.ui.select(). To use your favorite picker like Telescope, consider installing dressing.nvim or telescope-ui-select.nvim.

Configuration

To configure the plugin, you can call require('session_manager').setup(values), where values is a dictionary with the parameters you want to override. Here are the defaults:

local Path = require('plenary.path')
local config = require('session_manager.config')
require('session_manager').setup({
  sessions_dir = Path:new(vim.fn.stdpath('data'), 'sessions'), -- The directory where the session files will be saved.
  session_filename_to_dir = session_filename_to_dir, -- Function that replaces symbols into separators and colons to transform filename into a session directory.
  dir_to_session_filename = dir_to_session_filename, -- Function that replaces separators and colons into special symbols to transform session directory into a filename. Should use `vim.uv.cwd()` if the passed `dir` is `nil`.
  autoload_mode = config.AutoloadMode.LastSession, -- Define what to do when Neovim is started without arguments. See "Autoload mode" section below.
  autosave_last_session = true, -- Automatically save last session on exit and on session switch.
  autosave_ignore_not_normal = true, -- Plugin will not save a session when no buffers are opened, or all of them aren't writable or listed.
  autosave_ignore_dirs = {}, -- A list of directories where the session will not be autosaved.
  autosave_ignore_filetypes = { -- All buffers of these file types will be closed before the session is saved.
    'gitcommit',
    'gitrebase',
  },
  autosave_ignore_buftypes = {}, -- All buffers of these bufer types will be closed before the session is saved.
  autosave_only_in_session = false, -- Always autosaves session. If true, only autosaves after a session is active.
  max_path_length = 80,  -- Shorten the display path if length exceeds this threshold. Use 0 if don't want to shorten the path at all.
})

Autoload mode

If Neovim is started without arguments the value of the autoload_mode option is used to determine which session to initially load. The following modes are supported:

Mode	Description
Disabled	No session will be loaded.
CurrentDir	The session in the current working directory will be loaded.
LastSession	The last session will be loaded. This is the default.
GitSession	If in a git repo the session for repository root will be loaded

autoload_mode can be set to either a single mode or an array of modes, in which case each mode will be tried until one succeeds e.g.

autoload_mode = { config.AutoloadMode.CurrentDir, config.AutoloadMode.LastSession }

Would attempt to load the current directory session and then fallback to the last session.

Autocommands

You can specify commands to be executed automatically after saving or loading a session using the following events:

Event	Description
SessionSavePre	Executed before a session is saved
SessionSavePost	Executed after a session is saved
SessionLoadPre	Executed before a session is loaded
SessionLoadPost	Executed after a session is loaded

For example, if you would like to have NvimTree or any other file tree automatically opened after a session load, have this somewhere in your config file:

local config_group = vim.api.nvim_create_augroup('MyConfigGroup', {}) -- A global group for all your config autocommands

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ 'User' }, {
  pattern = "SessionLoadPost",
  group = config_group,
  callback = function()
    require('nvim-tree.api').tree.toggle(false, true)
  end,
})

Save session on BufWrite

You can enable this opt in feature with

-- Auto save session
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ 'BufWritePre' }, {
  callback = function ()
    for _, buf in ipairs(vim.api.nvim_list_bufs()) do
      -- Don't save while there's any 'nofile' buffer open.
      if vim.api.nvim_get_option_value("buftype", { buf = buf }) == 'nofile' then
        return
      end
    end
    session_manager.save_current_session()
  end
})

For more information about autocmd and its event, see also:

Shatur / neovim-session-manager