Installation

Installing Zim is easy. You can choose either the automatic or manual method below:

Automatic installation

This will install a predefined set of modules and a theme for you.

• With curl:

  curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zimfw/install/master/install.zsh | zsh
  

• With wget:

  wget -nv -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zimfw/install/master/install.zsh | zsh
  

Restart your terminal and you're done. Enjoy your Zsh IMproved! Take some time to tweak your ~/.zshrc file, and to also check the available modules and themes you can add to your ~/.zimrc.

Manual installation

1. Set Zsh as the default shell, if you haven't done so already:

   chsh -s $(which zsh)
   

2. Set up your ~/.zshrc file

3. Create your ~/.zimrc file

4. Restart your terminal and you're done. Enjoy your Zsh IMproved!

Set up ~/.zshrc

Add the lines below to your ~/.zshrc file, in the following order:

1. To use our degit tool by default to install modules:

   zstyle ':zim:zmodule' use 'degit'
   

   This is optional, and only required if you don't have git installed (yes, Zim works even without git!)

2. To set where the directory used by Zim will be located:

   ZIM_HOME=~/.zim
   

   The value of ZIM_HOME can be any directory your user has write access to. You can even set it to a cache directory like ${XDG_CACHE_HOME}/zim or ~/.cache/zim if you also include the step below, that automatically downloads the zimfw plugin manager.

3. To automatically download the zimfw plugin manager if missing:

   # Download zimfw plugin manager if missing.
   if [[ ! -e ${ZIM_HOME}/zimfw.zsh ]]; then
     curl -fsSL --create-dirs -o ${ZIM_HOME}/zimfw.zsh \
         https://github.com/zimfw/zimfw/releases/latest/download/zimfw.zsh
   fi
   

   Or if you use wget instead of curl:

   # Download zimfw plugin manager if missing.
   if [[ ! -e ${ZIM_HOME}/zimfw.zsh ]]; then
     mkdir -p ${ZIM_HOME} && wget -nv -O ${ZIM_HOME}/zimfw.zsh \
         https://github.com/zimfw/zimfw/releases/latest/download/zimfw.zsh
   fi
   

   This is optional. If you choose to not include this step, you should manually download the zimfw.zsh script once and keep it at ${ZIM_HOME}.

4. To automatically install missing modules and update the initialization script if missing or outdated:

   # Install missing modules, and update ${ZIM_HOME}/init.zsh if missing or outdated.
   if [[ ! ${ZIM_HOME}/init.zsh -nt ${ZDOTDIR:-${HOME}}/.zimrc ]]; then
     source ${ZIM_HOME}/zimfw.zsh init -q
   fi
   

   This step is optional, but highly recommended. If you choose to not include it, you must remember to manually run zimfw install every time after you update your ~/.zimrc file.

5. To source the initialization script, that initializes your modules:

   # Initialize modules.
   source ${ZIM_HOME}/init.zsh
   

Create ~/.zimrc

You must create your .zimrc file at ~/.zimrc, if the ZDOTDIR environment variable is not defined. Otherwise, it must be at ${ZDOTDIR}/.zimrc. It's referred to as ~/.zimrc in the documentation for the sake of simplicity.

You can start with just:

zmodule zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions

If you also want one of our prompt themes:

zmodule asciiship
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions

If you want to use our completion module too, instead of using compinit directly:

zmodule asciiship
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-completions --fpath src
zmodule completion
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting
zmodule zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions

The completion module calls compinit for you. You should remove any compinit calls from your ~/.zshrc when you use this module. The modules will be initialized in the order they are defined, and completion must be initialized after all modules that add completion definitions, so it must come after zsh-users/zsh-completions.

Check the zmodule usage for more examples on how to use it to define the modules you want to use.