gitui-org/gitui

Support opening inside of Helix

Open

#2,556 opened on Mar 11, 2025

View on GitHub
 (6 comments) (10 reactions) (0 assignees)Rust (21,937 stars) (721 forks)batch import
feature-requestgood first issue

Description

Yazi (A file explorer written in Rust) recently added support for using yazi right inside of Helix via :insert-output

You can use Lazygit right inside of Helix as well. This is described in the Helix wiki (https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/wiki/Recipes#git-integration)

I wanted to try out gitui. So I gave it a shot and wow its about 3x faster (benchmark: undoing changes for 1,200 files). So I want to use it now. I tried using it in Helix's :insert-output but it does not work.

:insert-output uses Helix's shell_impl_async to turn the output of the passed cmd: &str and display it in the editor

You can check Yazi's PR on how they implemented it and it may be implemented here in a similar way.

:insert-output gitui would ideally allow you to use gitui right within Helix, but at the moment it just freezes the screen.

Contributor guide

Tech stack
rust
Domain
clitooling
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
mostly clear
Prerequisites
Rustasync I/OHelix editor basics
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
40
Research direction
Investigate how Yazi implemented support for Helix’s :insert output in their PR (https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi/pull/2461). Study Helix’s shell impl async function at https://github.com/helix editor/helix/blob/b38eae1f98f63607af43e63852ff8488d8916d68/helix term/src/commands.rs#L6163 L6228 to understand the expected protocol. Then determine what changes are needed in gitui to output its interface to stdout asynchronously without freezing.
Support opening inside of Helix · gitui-org/gitui#2556 | Good First Issue