Neovim and LazyVim for Rails Development over SSH

NOTE: This is Part 3 of the Modernizing my Terminal-Based Development Environment series.

The Editor Setup

When you SSH into a devcontainer, you have two choices: use a terminal-based editor (nvim, vim, nano) or use an IDE with remote development extensions (VS Code and others handle this pretty well). I chose Neovim with LazyVim - a preconfigured Neovim distribution with sane defaults, LSP support, and a plugin ecosystem.

Once a vim user, always a vim user. I was even using vim keybindings in Cursor, so going back to actual Neovim felt natural.

LazyVim Setup

The LazyVim config for my DevPods lives outside of containers and is mounted in my host machine. The config includes things like project-specific plugins (e.g., Slim syntax for Rails) and other custom tweaks detailed below.

Installation happens through the custom DevPod setup scripts:

• Installs Neovim v0.11.4
• Clones LazyVim starter
• Installs ripgrep and fd for telescope/fuzzy finding
• Fixes permissions on mounted config directory (for the cases when the folder is created as root by docker compose)

What Works

Clipboard Integration (OSC 52)

Copying from nvim to host clipboard works perfectly via OSC 52 (a terminal escape sequence for clipboard operations)!

• Yank text with yy in nvim inside the container, paste on host with Ctrl+V / Ctrl+Shift+V
• For pasting FROM host clipboard INTO nvim I just use terminal paste (Ctrl+Shift+V) in insert mode. OSC 52 paste doesn’t seem to work reliably in nvim and causes weird timeout issues.

My learning here was that OSC 52 is basically one-directional for this workflow (nvim -> host copying only). See “LazyVim Configuration Details” below for complete config.

Multi-Cursor Editing

vim-visual-multi works great for Ctrl+N style multi-cursor (popularized by Sublime Text). Select a word, press Ctrl+N to add next occurrence, edit simultaneously. Works great for quick refactoring.

Usage:

1. Put cursor on a word
2. Press Ctrl+N - selects first occurrence
3. Press Ctrl+N again - adds next occurrence
4. Press Ctrl+X - skip current match
5. Type c to change all cursors simultaneously
6. Press Esc to exit multi-cursor mode

Global Find and Replace

LazyVim ships with grug-far (<leader>sr) for project-wide search/replace with visual preview. The interface is a bit unintuitive at first (look for keybinding hints in status bar), but powerful once you get it.

The Friction

Ruby LSP Setup

Getting Ruby LSP working took some troubleshooting. LazyVim’s default setup uses Mason to manage LSP servers, which is convenient for most languages but didn’t work well for Rails - the globally installed ruby-lsp didn’t have access to my project’s gems from the Gemfile.

After pairing with Claude Code, I found adam12/ruby-lsp.nvim as the solution. See the configuration details below for the full setup.

Ruby LSP Performance with Git Worktrees

I use git worktrees to work on multiple branches simultaneously, and ran into a performance issue: each worktree creates its own ruby-lsp index independently. So if you have 3 worktrees, each one will create its own .ruby-lsp/ directory and re-index the entire project + all gems from scratch. No shared caching between them.

Index caching doesn’t seem to be implemented yet, so you’re stuck with 3x indexing time if you have 3 worktrees. There are open feature requests for this (Issue #1040 for project-based caching, Issue #1009 for gem caching).

I haven’t tried this yet, but you can reduce indexing time by excluding unnecessary files and gems via .ruby-lsp/config.yml in your project root. The config lets you exclude test files, gems you never navigate to (like rubocop, rspec internals, factory_bot, etc.), and include gems that are normally excluded (development group gems and test files are excluded by default). Here’s an example:

# Exclude test files (indexed by default)
excluded_patterns:
  - "spec/**/*.rb"
  - "test/**/*.rb"
  - "features/**/*.rb"

# Exclude gems you never navigate to
excluded_gems:
  - "rubocop"
  - "rubocop-rails"
  - "rubocop-rspec"
  - "rspec-core"
  - "rspec-expectations"
  - "rspec-mocks"
  - "factory_bot"
  - "faker"
  - "debug"
  - "web-console"

# Include gems normally excluded (development group gems are excluded by default)
included_gems:
  - "ruby-lsp"  # if you want to navigate into ruby-lsp source

Navigation Between Nvim Splits and Zellij Panes

I tried getting seamless Alt+Arrow navigation between nvim splits and Zellij panes working with zellij-nav.nvim, but it requires zellij-autolock which messed up my Zellij setup.

For now I just use Ctrl+W H/J/K/L for nvim splits and Alt+Arrow for Zellij panes - different keybindings, but no mode switching headaches. I’ll come back to this another time and see if I can get things working like I used to have in my “old” tmux days.

LazyVim Configuration Details

These are some things I added to my configs that might be useful to you too.

-- Buffer navigation with Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown
vim.keymap.set("n", "<C-PageUp>", "<cmd>bprevious<cr>", { desc = "Previous Buffer" })
vim.keymap.set("n", "<C-PageDown>", "<cmd>bnext<cr>", { desc = "Next Buffer" })

-- Bufferline configuration - add buffer numbers to make it clear these are buffers, not tabs
return {
  {
    "akinsho/bufferline.nvim",
    opts = {
      options = {
        numbers = "buffer_id", -- Show buffer numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.)
        separator_style = "slant",
      },
    },
  },
}

-- Snacks configuration
-- Explorer: Show hidden and gitignored files by default
-- File pickers (<space>ff, <space><space>): Show hidden files, respect .gitignore
return {
  {
    "folke/snacks.nvim",
    opts = {
      picker = {
        sources = {
          explorer = {
            hidden = true,     -- Show hidden files (dotfiles)
            ignored = true,    -- Show gitignored files
          },
          files = {
            hidden = true,     -- Show hidden files in file picker
            -- Note: Gitignored files intentionally excluded from fuzzy finders
            -- This is standard behavior - keeps search results focused
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

-- Disable relative line numbers
vim.opt.relativenumber = false

-- OSC 52 clipboard over SSH - copy only
-- Yank (y) copies to system clipboard via OSC 52
-- Paste (p) uses nvim's internal registers only (OSC 52 paste doesn't work reliably)
-- For pasting from system clipboard, use terminal paste (Ctrl+Shift+V in insert mode)
local osc52 = require("vim.ui.clipboard.osc52")
vim.g.clipboard = {
  name = "OSC 52",
  copy = {
    ["+"] = osc52.copy("+"),
    ["*"] = osc52.copy("*"),
  },
  paste = {
    ["+"] = function()
      return vim.split(vim.fn.getreg('"'), '\n')
    end,
    ["*"] = function()
      return vim.split(vim.fn.getreg('"'), '\n')
    end,
  },
}

-- vim-visual-multi: Multi-cursor support (Ctrl+N style)
return {
  {
    "mg979/vim-visual-multi",
    branch = "master",
    init = function()
      vim.g.VM_maps = {
        ["Find Under"] = "<C-n>",           -- Start multi-cursor, add next match
        ["Find Subword Under"] = "<C-n>",
        ["Select All"] = "<C-A-n>",         -- Select all matches
        ["Skip Region"] = "<C-x>",          -- Skip current match
        ["Remove Region"] = "<C-p>",        -- Go back to previous match
      }
    end,
  },
}

# Gemfile
group :development do
  gem 'ruby-lsp', require: false
end

return {
  -- Use adam12/ruby-lsp.nvim to manage ruby-lsp with the correct Ruby version
  {
    "adam12/ruby-lsp.nvim",
    dependencies = {
      "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim",
      "neovim/nvim-lspconfig",
    },
    ft = "ruby",
    opts = {
      -- Don't auto-install - use the bundled gem from Gemfile
      auto_install = false,
      -- Pass configuration to lspconfig
      lspconfig = {
        cmd = { "bundle", "exec", "ruby-lsp" },
        init_options = {
          formatter = "rubocop",
          linters = { "rubocop" },
        },
      },
    },
  },

  -- Disable Mason from managing ruby_lsp
  {
    "mason-org/mason-lspconfig.nvim",
    optional = true,
    opts = function(_, opts)
      opts.ensure_installed = opts.ensure_installed or {}
      -- Remove ruby_lsp from auto-install list
      opts.ensure_installed = vim.tbl_filter(function(server)
        return server ~= "ruby_lsp"
      end, opts.ensure_installed)
    end,
  },

  -- Prevent LazyVim from setting up ruby_lsp via default mechanism
  {
    "neovim/nvim-lspconfig",
    opts = {
      servers = {
        ruby_lsp = {
          mason = false,
        },
      },
      setup = {
        ruby_lsp = function()
          return true -- Skip default setup, handled by ruby-lsp.nvim
        end,
      },
    },
  },
}

That’s It

I’m happy with the setup. Feels good to be back to my roots after months in Cursor. Multi-cursor editing feels natural, clipboard integration via OSC 52 just works, and Ruby LSP provides the autocomplete/diagnostics I need for daily Rails work.

Still figuring some things out though. LSP doesn’t feel as stable as it was in Cursor - not sure if it’s ruby-lsp itself or my config yet. Can’t get Alt+Arrow navigation to work seamlessly between nvim splits and Zellij panes (gave up on zellij-nav.nvim for now). And there’s lots of learning about LazyVim - the plugin ecosystem and configuration approach takes time to internalize.

Overall, it’s great. The friction is acceptable and I’m learning more about my tools in the process.

Resources

Official Documentation:

• LazyVim
• Neovim
• adam12/ruby-lsp.nvim
• Ruby LSP Official Docs
• vim-visual-multi
• grug-far

Related Posts:

• DevPod: SSH-Based Devcontainers - DevPod setup
• Using Zellij and Claude Code Over SSH - Daily terminal workflow
• Index Caching Feature Request #1040