Basics

Basic commands required for Vim movement, navigation, operators, counts, and text editing.

💻️ Enter Vim Mode

Default: Entry keybind is SUPER + ESCAPE to enter NORMAL mode.

Important

This can be customized in your settings.conf per Configuration.

📍 Navigation

Key	Description
H	Move left (with count)
BACKSPACE	Move left (with count)
J	Move down (with count)
K	Move up (with count)
L	Move right (with count)
SHIFT+H	Jump to line start
SHIFT+L	Jump to line end
SHIFT+J	Move down and to line start (with count)
SHIFT+K	Move up and to line start (with count)
CTRL+H	Ctrl left (with count)
CTRL+J	Ctrl down (with count)
CTRL+K	Ctrl up (with count)
CTRL+L	Ctrl right (with count)

Text Movement

Key	Description
B	Move back word (with count)
E	Move to word end (with count)
W	Move forward word (with count)
SHIFT+B	Move back WORD (with count)
SHIFT+E	Move to WORD end (with count)
SHIFT+W	Move forward WORD (with count)
SHIFT+BRACKETLEFT	Jump to paragraph start ({)
SHIFT+BRACKETRIGHT	Jump to paragraph end (})

Line Movement

Key	Description
SHIFT+MINUS	Jump to first non-blank (^)
SHIFT+6	Jump to first non-blank (^)
0	Jump to line start or append digit
SHIFT+4	Jump to line end ($)

Page/Document Movement

Key	Description
SHIFT+G	Jump to document end
SHIFT+GRAVE	Jump to document end (~)
CTRL+D	Scroll down half page (with count)
CTRL+F	Scroll down full page (with count)
CTRL+U	Scroll up half page (with count)
CTRL+B	Scroll up full page (with count)

Go Motions (g prefix)

Key	Description
E	Move to end of previous word (ge)
SHIFT+T	Go to previous tab (gT)
T	Go to next tab (gt)
G	Go to document start (gg)
SHIFT+G	Go to document end (G)
H	Show keybindings help (gh)
M	Show marks list (gm)
S	Surround text with character(s) (gs)
N	Edit selected text in Vim/Nvim, start in NORMAL mode (gn)
I	Edit selected text in Vim/Nvim, start in INSERT mode (gm)

🔢 Counts

Type numbers before motions/operators to repeat them:

• 5j - Move down 5 lines
• 3dw - Delete 3 words
• 10w - Move forward 10 words
• 2dd - Delete 2 lines
• 4yy - Yank 4 lines

✂️ Operators

Delete

Key	Description
SHIFT+D	Delete to line end
SHIFT+X	Delete char before cursor (with count)
X	Delete char in front of cursor (with count)
d	Start d-motion (see below)

Change (Delete and enter insert)

Key	Description
SHIFT+C	Change to line end
c	Start c-motion (see below)

Yank (Copy)

Key	Description
P	Paste after cursor
SHIFT+P	Paste before cursor
y	Start y-motion (see below)

Operator + Motion

• D - Delete with motion (dw, dd, diw)
• C - Change with motion (cw, cc, ciw)
• Y - Yank with motion (yw, yy, yiw)

Text Objects

Text objects allow you to operate on semantic units:

• iw - Inner word (word without surrounding whitespace)
• aw - Around word (word with surrounding whitespace)
• ip - Inner paragraph (paragraph without blank lines)
• ap - Around paragraph (paragraph with blank lines)

Example usage:

dw          - Delete word (from cursor to end)
3dw         - Delete 3 words
dd          - Delete line
d$          - Delete to end of line
diw         - Delete inner word (entire word under cursor)
daw         - Delete around word (word + whitespace)
ciw         - Change inner word (delete and enter insert)
caw         - Change around word
yy          - Yank (copy) line
yiw         - Yank inner word
gs{         - Surround highlighted word in character(s) (e.g., {word})
gs<div>     - Surround highlighted word in html/xml (.e.g, <div>word</div>)

📄 Common Edit Actions

Undo/Redo

Key	Description
U	Undo
CTRL+R	Redo

Note

Undo/redo depends on application support for Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y.

Replace

• R - Replace character (r)
• SHIFT+R - Replace forward (R)

Replace Operations

Key	Description
r<char>	Replace character under cursor instantly (no prompt)
5r<char>	Replace 5 characters with same character (prompts once)
R	Replace forward with string (prompts for text)

Replace Examples

rx              - Replace current character with 'x'
5ra             - Replace next 5 characters with 'aaaaa'
R → "hello"     - Replace next 5 characters with "hello"

Indent

Key	Description
SHIFT+PERIOD	Indent line (>)
SHIFT+COMMA	Unindent line (<)

🔁 Surround

Wrap text with character pairs from normal or visual mode.

Key	Description
gs	Surround word (normal/visual mode)

Surround Operations

The surround feature supports:

• Single characters: Automatically pairs brackets ( ) { } [ ] < >
• Multi-character: Supports spacing like { text }
• HTML/XML tags: Auto-closes tags like <div>text</div>
• Custom text: Any character sequence

Surround Examples

gs → (           - Surround word with (word)
gs → {           - Surround word with {word}
gs → { ␣         - Surround word with { word }
gs → <div>       - Surround word with <div>word</div>
gs → **          - Surround word with **word**

Visual mode:
viwgs → "         - Select word, surround with "word"
vjjgs → <p>       - Select 3 lines, surround with <p>lines</p>

🔍 Find

f, t, and / commands will open a prompt for you to type in using your $HYPRVIM_PROMPT (see Configuration).

Key	Description
SLASH	Search forward (/)
SHIFT+SLASH	Search backward (?)
SHIFT+8	Search selected word forward (*)
SHIFT+3	Search selected word backward
F	Find forward (f)
SHIFT+F	Find backward (F)
T	Find till forward (t)
SHIFT+T	Find till backward (T)
N	Find next match (n)
SHIFT+N	Find previous match (N)
SEMICOLON	Repeat find in same direction (;)
COMMA	Repeat find in opposite direction

Note

These operations all rely on the application supporting [CTRL + F]. The n and N commands use [F3] and [SHIFT + F3] respectively.

Configuration

Set HYPRVIM_PROMPT environment variable to choose input tool:

$HYPRVIM_PROMPT = wofi  # or rofi, tofi, fuzzel, dmenu, zenity, kdialog

Auto-detection order: rofi → wofi → tofi → fuzzel → dmenu → zenity → kdialog

🚪 Exiting

Key	Description
ESC	Return to NORMAL mode from any mode
$HYPRVIM_LEADER + ESC	Exit Vim mode entirely (back to Hyprland)
ALT + ESC	Emergency exit (panic button, always available)

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