How to use Telescope with vim.pack instead of Lazy?

[rseichter]

I am trying to move from Lazy to vim.pack where possible, and I am wondering about how best to configure Telescope. Given that Telescope has various dependencies, and that the available instructions focus on using Lazy, I wonder if any of you have a working vim.pack based configuration you might be willing to share? Thank you.

[MukundaKatta]

vim.pack's not-quite-as-friendly with Telescope's dependency graph since plenary/telescope-fzf-native are transitive:

vim.pack.add({
  { src = 'https://github.com/nvim-lua/plenary.nvim' },
  { src = 'https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim' },
})
-- fzf-native needs a `make` step, so either prebuild or:
vim.pack.add({ { src = 'https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope-fzf-native.nvim',
                 build = function() vim.fn.system({'make'}) end } })

Then require('telescope').setup({...}) in a post-load PackChanged autocmd. Load order matters — plenary first, then telescope.

[rseichter]

@MukundaKatta This looks promising, thank you. I will also abandon my idea of running Lazy and vim.pack side by side during migration; this attempt has already proven troublesome.

[rseichter]

@MukundaKatta I have now moved to a new setup which does not use Lazy and vim.pack side by side anymore. It took some fiddling, but most of my plugins of choice are now working with vim.pack only. As for Telescope, I had to extend the list of trigger events:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ "PackChanged", "VimEnter" }, {
  callback = my_telescope_setup_callback,
})

Like you, Evgeni Chasnovski's suggests using hooks for dedicated events PackChangedPre | PackChanged, but I had to add VimEnter to get reliable activation of Telescope.

[andradei]

This is how I did it:

-- FILE: nvim/plugin/telescope.lua

-- AUTOCOMMANDS

-- WARN: This is a build for installation (and also update) step, so it must
--       come before adding the plugins in order to get triggered.
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd('PackChanged', {
	desc = 'telescope: build extensions and setup it up in order',
	callback = function(ev)
		local name, kind = ev.data.spec.name, ev.data.kind
		if name == 'telescope-fzf-native.nvim' and (kind == 'install' or kind == 'update') then
			vim.system({ 'make' }, { cwd = ev.data.path })
		end
	end,
})

-- SETUP

vim.pack.add {
	-- Order matters to respect dependency tree.
	'https://github.com/nvim-lua/plenary.nvim',
	'https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim',
	'https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope-fzf-native.nvim',
}

require('telescope').setup {
	extensions = {
		fzf = {
			fuzzy = true,
			override_generic_sorter = true,
			override_file_sorter = true,
			case_mode = 'smart_case',
		},
	},
}

require('telescope').load_extension 'fzf'

-- KEYMAPS

local builtin = require 'telescope.builtin'

vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>f', builtin.find_files, { desc = 'pick files' })

-- ...