A lightweight plugin manager for Zsh inspired by Antigen. Keep your .zshrc
clean and simple.
Zgen provides you a few simple commands for managing plugins. It installs your plugins and generates a static init script that will source them for you every time you run the shell. We do this to save some startup time by not having to execute time consuming logic (plugin checking, updates, etc). This means that you have to manually check for updates (zgen update
) and reset the init script (zgen reset
) whenever you add or remove plugins.
The motive for creating zgen was to have plugins quickly installed on a new machine without getting the startup lag that Antigen used to give me.
Clone the zgen repository
git clone https://github.com/tarjoilija/zgen.git "${HOME}/.zgen"
Edit your .zshrc file to load zgen
# load zgen
source "${HOME}/.zgen/zgen.zsh"
Place the following code after the one above to load oh-my-zsh for example, see Usage for more details
# if the init script doesn't exist
if ! zgen saved; then
# specify plugins here
zgen oh-my-zsh
# generate the init script from plugins above
zgen save
fi
This is a handy shortcut for installing oh-my-zsh plugins. They can be loaded using zgen load
too with a significantly longer format.
It's a good idea to load the base components before specifying any plugins.
zgen oh-my-zsh
zgen oh-my-zsh <location>
zgen oh-my-zsh
zgen oh-my-zsh plugins/git
zgen oh-my-zsh plugins/sudo
zgen oh-my-zsh plugins/command-not-found
zgen oh-my-zsh themes/arrow
zgen prezto
This will create a symlink in the ZSHDOT
or HOME
directory. This is needed by prezto.
Note: When zgen prezto
is used with zgen oh-my-zsh
together, zgen prezto
should be put behind the other. Or prompt theme from prezto may not display as expected.
zgen prezto <modulename>
This uses the Prezto method for loading modules.
Note: Some modules from prezto are enabled by default. Use ZGEN_PREZTO_LOAD_DEFAULT=0
to disable this behavior.
zgen pmodule <reponame> <branch>
This uses the Prezto method for loading the module. It creates a symlink and calls pmodule
.
zgen prezto <modulename> <option> <value(s)>
This must be used before the module is loaded. Or if the default modules should be loaded (default) these settings must be done before the zgen prezto
command. module
is prepended if the name does not start with module
, prezto
or a *
, prezto
is prepended if it does not start with prezto
.
zgen load <repo> [location] [branch]
Zgen tries to source any scripts from location
using a "very smart matching logic". If it fails to find any, it will appends location
to $fpath
.
repo
- github
user/repository
or path to a repository - currently supported formats for a repository path:
- any local repository
git://*
https://*
http://*
ssh://*
git@*:*/*
- github
location
- relative path to a script/folder
- useful for repositories that don't have proper plugin support like
zsh-users/zsh-completions
branch
- specifies the git branch to use
zgen loadall <plugins>
Please see example .zshrc
for usage.
zgen save
It is recommended to save the plugin sourcing part to a static init script so we don't have to go through the time consuming installing/updating part every time we start the shell (or source .zshrc)
zgen reset
Removes the init script so it will be created next time you start the shell. You must run this every time you add or remove plugins to trigger the changes.
This will not remove the plugins physically from disk.
zgen saved
Returns 0 if an init script exists.
zgen update
Pulls updates on every plugin repository and removes the init script.
zgen selfupdate
You can automate the process of running zgen reset
by specifying a list of files to ZGEN_RESET_ON_CHANGE
. These files will be checked and if a change is detected zgen reset is called.
ZGEN_RESET_ON_CHANGE=(${HOME}/.zshrc ${HOME}/.zshrc.local)
Be aware that zgen
tries to handle compinit
for you to allow for the fastest possible initialization times. However, this functionality will be disabled if you've already called compinit
yourself before sourcing zgen.zsh
. Alternatively, you can disable it yourself by disabling $ZGEN_AUTOLOAD_COMPINIT
.
# load zgen
source "${HOME}/.zgen/zgen.zsh"
# if the init scipt doesn't exist
if ! zgen saved; then
echo "Creating a zgen save"
zgen oh-my-zsh
# plugins
zgen oh-my-zsh plugins/git
zgen oh-my-zsh plugins/sudo
zgen oh-my-zsh plugins/command-not-found
zgen load zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting
zgen load /path/to/super-secret-private-plugin
# bulk load
zgen loadall <<EOPLUGINS
zsh-users/zsh-history-substring-search
/path/to/local/plugin
EOPLUGINS
# ^ can't indent this EOPLUGINS
# completions
zgen load zsh-users/zsh-completions src
# theme
zgen oh-my-zsh themes/arrow
# save all to init script
zgen save
fi
Here is a partial example how to work with prezto
...
echo "Creating a zgen save"
# prezto options
zgen prezto editor key-bindings 'emacs'
zgen prezto prompt theme 'sorin'
# prezto and modules
zgen prezto
zgen prezto git
zgen prezto command-not-found
zgen prezto syntax-highlighting
# plugins
zgen load /path/to/super-secret-private-plugin
....
The awesome-zsh-plugins list contains many zgen-compatible zsh plugins & themes that you may find useful.
There's a quickstart kit for using zsh and zgen at zsh-quickstart-kit that guides you through setting up zgen and includes a sampler of useful plugins.
The autoupdate-zgen plugin will enable your zgen to periodically update itself and your list of plugins.