containers/nvim

🌙 nvim

A Debian-based container with Neovim, lua-language-server, and stylua for linting, type-checking, formatting, and testing Neovim plugins.

Perfect for CI/CD steps where you want a pinned Neovim + Lua toolchain ready to go without downloading release tarballs on every run.

There is no standalone lua: plugins run on Neovim's built-in LuaJIT, so tests run through nvim --headless (or nvim -l), and stylua and lua-language-server don't need one.

🛠 Usage

Docker

Check formatting

Mount your current directory to the container and run stylua:

docker run --rm -v "${PWD}":/workdir -w /workdir ghcr.io/eleith/containers-nvim:0.12.1-luals3.19.1-stylua2.5.2 stylua --check .

Type-check with lua-language-server

docker run --rm -v "${PWD}":/workdir -w /workdir ghcr.io/eleith/containers-nvim:0.12.1-luals3.19.1-stylua2.5.2 lua-language-server --check .

Set "runtime.version": "LuaJIT" in your .luarc.json so it checks against what Neovim actually runs, and declare test globals (describe, MiniTest, …) there too.

Run headless Neovim

docker run --rm -v "${PWD}":/workdir -w /workdir ghcr.io/eleith/containers-nvim:0.12.1-luals3.19.1-stylua2.5.2 nvim --headless -c 'lua print(vim.version())' -c 'qa'

🧪 Tests

Test frameworks are not baked in. Clone the one you use at run time (git is installed) and put it on the runtimepath.

plenary

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nvim-lua/plenary.nvim /tmp/plenary
nvim --headless --noplugin -u NONE \
  -c "set rtp+=.,/tmp/plenary" -c "runtime plugin/plenary.vim" \
  -c "PlenaryBustedDirectory tests {minimal_init = 'NONE', init = 'NONE'}"

mini.test

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/echasnovski/mini.nvim /tmp/mini
nvim --headless --noplugin -u NONE \
  -c "set rtp+=.,/tmp/mini" -c "lua require('mini.test').setup()" \
  -c "lua MiniTest.run()" -c "qa!"

CI/CD (Woodpecker/GitHub Actions)

Since the image has git and make installed, you can use it in your CI pipeline steps to run your existing test and lint targets:

GitHub Actions

jobs:
  lint:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    container: ghcr.io/eleith/containers-nvim:0.12.1-luals3.19.1-stylua2.5.2
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: stylua --check .
      - run: lua-language-server --check .

🏷 Tags

Releases are tagged nvim/vX.Y.Z, which publishes the semver tags plus a descriptive one naming what is inside:

1  1.0  1.0.0  0.12.1-luals3.19.1-stylua2.5.2

The descriptive tag comes from the Dockerfile's build args. See Releases for latest and publishing.

⚙️ Build Args

Tool versions are pinned via build args:

Arg	Default
NVIM_VERSION	0.12.1
LUALS_VERSION	3.19.1
STYLUA_VERSION	2.5.2

To bump a tool, change its default here and tag a release. Overriding with --build-arg only affects local builds; CI tags are read from the defaults.

docker build --build-arg NVIM_VERSION=0.12.1 -t nvim ./nvim

📦 Tech Stack

• Base: Debian 13 (slim)
• Tools: nvim (with LuaJIT), lua-language-server, stylua, git, make, curl
• Arch: x86_64 only (release binaries are downloaded for linux-x86_64)