I use incremental selections in Neovim all the time. This is where I tap, tap, tap, and on every single tap, the selection expands starting from the cursor position and climbs up by the node or the whole scope. This feature uses Tree-sitter under the hood, so it respects the grammar of the programming language. One of my favourite features of Neovim!

A demo of incremental selection in Neovim.

Configure nvim-treesitter

To enable this feature, you need to install nvim-treesitter first. The configuration differs depending on the branch you’re using, so I will provide a recipe for the master (which is still the default branch at the time of writing this post) and the main branch, which will eventually become the default one according to the roadmap. I use <A-o> and <A-i> where “o” and “i” work as a mnemonics for “select out” and “select in”.

The master branch

{
 "nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter",
 build = ":TSUpdate",
 config = function()
 incremental_selection = {
 enable = true,
 keymaps = {
 init_selection = "<A-o>",
 node_incremental = "<A-o>",
 scope_incremental = "<A-O>",
 node_decremental = "<A-i>",
 },
 },
 })
 end,
}

The main branch

One of the biggest changes in the main branch is the lack of a modules framework, so some of the stuff like indentation, folding, and also incremental selection need to be recreated. The treesitter-modules.nvim is the easiest and the most reliable plugin to reproduce missing functionalities amongst the other ones I tested. Also, keep in mind that using the main branch requires the tree-sitter-cli, so make sure you have one in your path.

return {
 {
 "nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter",
 branch = "main",
 build = ":TSUpdate",
 },
 {
 {
 "MeanderingProgrammer/treesitter-modules.nvim",
 dependencies = { "nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter" },
 opts = {
 incremental_selection = {
 enable = true,
 keymaps = {
 init_selection = "<A-o>",
 node_incremental = "<A-o>",
 scope_incremental = "<A-O>",
 node_decremental = "<A-i>",
 },
 },
 },
 },
 },
}

Built-in incremental selection

The good news is that LSP-based incremental selection is coming to the Neovim core soon. The an and in in visual mode will map to the outer and inner incremental selections. Here are the new default mappings.

vim.keymap.set('x', 'an', function()
 vim.lsp.buf.selection_range('outer')
end, { desc = "vim.lsp.buf.selection_range('outer')" })

vim.keymap.set('x', 'in', function()
 vim.lsp.buf.selection_range('inner')
end, { desc = "vim.lsp.buf.selection_range('inner')" })

There is also a strong signal from core maintainers that the LSP implementation will eventually be replaced with the Tree-sitter one. Nice 👌

I know that this feature is not specific to Neovim. Helix also comes with expand_selection and shrink_selection, also powered by Tree-sitter. Visual Studio Code most likely uses TextMate grammar and LSP under the hood to create the Expand and Shrink commands. IntelliJ uses its own proprietary PSI (Program Structure Interface) to enable Extend Selection and Shrink Selection, but I have never used it and I don’t know how it compares to the TS one.

Done 👋

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