Shell

The [shell] table chooses what you work in when you open a shell in the VM: the login shell and its tools, the prompt, the editor and the terminal multiplexer.

limanix.toml

[shell]
preset = "terminal"   # terminal or minimal
prompt = "pure"       # pure, starship or none
editor = "astronvim"  # astronvim, neovim or none
multiplexer = "tmux"  # tmux or none

These are the defaults: a file without a [shell] table gets the same shell. Apply a change with limanix update --config limanix.toml; see Changing a VM.

Choose a preset

Preset	Login shell	Always included
terminal, the default	Zsh with Oh My Zsh	Git, the CLI tools, Lazygit, Yazi and the GitHub CLI
minimal	Bash	Git and the CLI tools

The CLI tools are rg, fd, fzf, bat, eza, delta, jq, yq, xh, btop, dust, duf and tldr. Zsh adds command suggestions, syntax highlighting, completion search with Tab, history search with Ctrl-R, z to return to visited directories and direnv for project environments. The terminal shows how to use them.

The preset also sets the defaults of the other settings:

Setting	Choices	terminal default	minimal default
prompt	pure, starship, none	pure	none
editor	astronvim, neovim, none	astronvim	none
multiplexer	tmux, none	tmux	none

none leaves the component out of the VM. With minimal, name an editor or a multiplexer to add it:

limanix.toml

[shell]
preset = "minimal"
editor = "neovim"

The minimal preset has no GitHub CLI: add it with packages = ["gh"] in [nixos]. To keep the terminal preset with another login shell, set limanix.user.shell in your own module.

Choose a prompt

The prompt belongs to Zsh and needs the terminal preset.

prompt	What you get
pure, the default	Pure on two lines: the directory, the Git state, how long a command took and a different color after a failed command
starship	Starship, which also shows the hostname, the language versions it detects and the exit status
none	No managed prompt: set PROMPT in your ~/.zshrc

Both prompts use the colors of the theme. Outside tmux, they show the words of lmx status --short that need attention, such as restart; inside tmux, the status line shows them. A personal ~/.config/starship.toml takes precedence over the managed Starship settings.

With preset = "minimal", leave prompt out or set it to none: limanix create and limanix update reject a prompt there. Bash then shows your account, the VM's hostname and the directory in the theme's accent colors.

Choose an editor

editor	What you get
astronvim, the default	Neovim set up as AstroNvim: file explorer, fuzzy search, completion, Git UI, diagnostics and the language servers of your toolchains. Neovim becomes the default EDITOR.
neovim	Plain Neovim. vi and vim start it too; EDITOR stays nano, and you configure language servers yourself.
none	No editor

Open files with nvim. Your own ~/.config/nvim/init.lua or init.vim, for example from your dotfiles, replaces the bundled AstroNvim setup. To extend AstroNvim instead, add plugin specifications under ~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/.

Choose a multiplexer

multiplexer = "tmux" adds tmux: windows, split panes, mouse support, copying to the Mac clipboard and saved layouts that tmux restores after a restart. It also provides named sessions. From the Mac, --session opens a tmux session in the VM, or attaches to it when it exists:

Mac

limanix shell dev-box --session work

Run the same command to return after you detach with Ctrl-B d. Session names cannot contain . or :. Without tmux or a session provider from your own module, limanix shell --session names the setting that adds one and exits.

Shell and sessions covers sessions, and The terminal covers the tmux keys.

Your own startup files

Your startup files, such as ~/.zshrc, load after the catalog's configuration. Keep them in your dotfiles to share them between VMs.