Executable-checker.nvim

This is a plugin to help checking whether you're missing some external executable commands.

mason.nvim is great, but it does not cover everything. For example, in telescope.nvim it's quite common to use the rg command for in-text live grep. When sharing a configuration across multiple machines, it becomes a problem because sometimes people loose track of what external binaries they need to install.

Usage

Add executables to be checked

As a plugin user

Add this plugin to your plugin manager and call the setup function with the executables that you which to run :checkhealth with.

An example config for lazy.nvim:

{
    "Davidyz/executable-checker.nvim",
    config = function()
        require('executable-checker').setup({ executables = { "rg" } })
    end,
}

As a plugin developer

If your plugin depends on a specific external command, and you want to use this plugin to give users a nice way to check for external dependencies, you can use this plugin as well.

You can put this in your code:

local status, checker = pcall(require, 'executable-checker')
if status then
  checker.add_executable("some_ext_command")
end

This way, if your plugin is loaded, when the user run :checkhealth or :checkhealth executable-checker, some_ext_command will show up in the checkhealth page.

add_executable can also accept a list of executables:

checker.add_executable({"command1", "command2"})

Running the check

Simply run :checkhealth or :checkhealth executable-checker in normal mode. You will see a report similar to the following.

Group executables by package

You may group the executables under different package names so that the report will be more organised and gives you a better idea of "what's this executable for?" when you go through the health report. To do so:

• As a plugin user, when you configure this plugin, do this to put rg under the subsection for telescope.

{
    "Davidyz/executable-checker.nvim",
    config = function()
        require('executable-checker').setup({ executables = { telescope = { "rg" } } })
    end,
}

• As a plugin developer, pass an extra parameter of package_name to add_executable:

local status, checker = pcall(require, 'executable-checker')
if status then
  checker.add_executable("some_ext_command", "my_plugin")
end