Installing Plugins

When Kakoune starts up, it recursively searches the %val{config}/autoload directory (usually ~/.config/kak/autoload) for filenames ending in .kak and loads them.

Note: If you create %val{config}/autoload, Kakoune will stop loading the standard library plugins from %val{runtime}/autoload. This allows you to control which plugins you want by selectively symlinking them into your personal autoload directory. If you want a personal autoload directory and to load all the standard plugins, you can run the following command in Kakoune:

nop %sh{
    mkdir -p "$kak_config/autoload"
    ln -s "$kak_runtime/rc" "$kak_config/autoload/standard-library"
}

To install a plugin that comes as a single .kak file, just copy it into the autoload directory.

To install a plugin from a git repository, you can git clone the repository in the autoload directory. If your Kakoune config is itself stored in a git repository, you can make the plugin a git submodule or subtree.

If you would prefer a more automated system for installing and updating plugins, you might want to use a plugin manager.