🗒️ AutoSession

AutoSession takes advantage of Neovim's existing session management capabilities to provide seamless automatic session management.

📦 Installation

Lazy.nvim:

{
  'rmagatti/auto-session',
  lazy = false,

  ---enables autocomplete for opts
  ---@module "auto-session"
  ---@type AutoSession.Config
  opts = {
    suppressed_dirs = { '~/', '~/Projects', '~/Downloads', '/' },
    -- log_level = 'debug',
  }
}

Packer.nvim:

use {
  'rmagatti/auto-session',
  config = function()
    require("auto-session").setup {
      suppressed_dirs = { "~/", "~/Projects", "~/Downloads", "/"},
    }
  end
}

💡 Behaviour

1. When starting nvim with no arguments, AutoSession will try to restore an existing session for the current cwd if one exists.
2. When starting nvim . (or another directory), AutoSession will try to restore the session for that directory. See argument handling for more details.
3. When starting nvim some_file.txt (or multiple files), by default, AutoSession won't do anything. See argument handling for more details.
4. Even after starting nvim with a file argument, a session can still be manually restored by running :SessionRestore.
5. Any session saving and restoration takes into consideration the current working directory cwd.
6. When piping to nvim, e.g: cat myfile | nvim, AutoSession won't do anything.

⚠️ Please note that if there are errors in your config, restoring the session might fail, if that happens, auto session will then disable auto saving for the current session. Manually saving a session can still be done by calling :SessionSave.

⚙️ Configuration

Here are the default settings:

{
  enabled = true, -- Enables/disables auto creating, saving and restoring
  root_dir = vim.fn.stdpath "data" .. "/sessions/", -- Root dir where sessions will be stored
  auto_save = true, -- Enables/disables auto saving session on exit
  auto_restore = true, -- Enables/disables auto restoring session on start
  auto_create = true, -- Enables/disables auto creating new session files. Can take a function that should return true/false if a new session file should be created or not
  suppressed_dirs = nil, -- Suppress session restore/create in certain directories
  allowed_dirs = nil, -- Allow session restore/create in certain directories
  auto_restore_last_session = false, -- On startup, loads the last saved session if session for cwd does not exist
  use_git_branch = false, -- Include git branch name in session name
  lazy_support = true, -- Automatically detect if Lazy.nvim is being used and wait until Lazy is done to make sure session is restored correctly. Does nothing if Lazy isn't being used. Can be disabled if a problem is suspected or for debugging
  bypass_save_filetypes = nil, -- List of file types to bypass auto save when the only buffer open is one of the file types listed, useful to ignore dashboards
  close_unsupported_windows = true, -- Close windows that aren't backed by normal file before autosaving a session
  args_allow_single_directory = true, -- Follow normal sesion save/load logic if launched with a single directory as the only argument
  args_allow_files_auto_save = false, -- Allow saving a session even when launched with a file argument (or multiple files/dirs). It does not load any existing session first. While you can just set this to true, you probably want to set it to a function that decides when to save a session when launched with file args. See documentation for more detail
  continue_restore_on_error = true, -- Keep loading the session even if there's an error
  show_auto_restore_notif = false, -- Whether to show a notification when auto-restoring
  cwd_change_handling = false, -- Follow cwd changes, saving a session before change and restoring after
  log_level = "error", -- Sets the log level of the plugin (debug, info, warn, error).

  session_lens = {
    load_on_setup = true, -- Initialize on startup (requires Telescope)
    theme_conf = { -- Pass through for Telescope theme options
      -- layout_config = { -- As one example, can change width/height of picker
      --   width = 0.8,    -- percent of window
      --   height = 0.5,
      -- },
    },
    previewer = false, -- File preview for session picker

    mappings = {
      -- Mode can be a string or a table, e.g. {"i", "n"} for both insert and normal mode
      delete_session = { "i", "<C-D>" },
      alternate_session = { "i", "<C-S>" },
      copy_session = { "i", "<C-Y>" },
    },

    session_control = {
      control_dir = vim.fn.stdpath "data" .. "/auto_session/", -- Auto session control dir, for control files, like alternating between two sessions with session-lens
      control_filename = "session_control.json", -- File name of the session control file
    },
  },
}

NOTE: Older configuration names are still currently supported and will be automatically translated to the names above. If you want to update your config to the new names, :checkhealth auto-session will show you your config using the new names.

Recommended sessionoptions config

For a better experience with the plugin overall using this config for sessionoptions is recommended:

Lua

vim.o.sessionoptions="blank,buffers,curdir,folds,help,tabpages,winsize,winpos,terminal,localoptions"

VimL

set sessionoptions+=winpos,terminal,folds

⚠️ if you use packer.nvim's lazy loading feature, and you have the options value in your sessionoptions beware it might lead to weird behaviour with the lazy loading, especially around key-based lazy loading where keymaps are kept and thus the lazy loading mapping packer creates never gets set again.

📢 Commands

AutoSession exposes the following commands that can be used or mapped to any keybindings for manually saving and restoring sessions.

:SessionSave " saves a session based on the `cwd` in `root_dir`
:SessionSave my_session " saves a session called `my_session` in `root_dir`

:SessionRestore " restores a session based on the `cwd` from `root_dir`
:SessionRestore my_session " restores `my_session` from `root_dir`

:SessionDelete " deletes a session based on the `cwd` from `root_dir`
:SessionDelete my_session " deletes `my_sesion` from `root_dir`

:SessionDisableAutoSave " disables autosave
:SessionDisableAutoSave! " enables autosave (still does all checks in the config)
:SessionToggleAutoSave " toggles autosave

:SessionPurgeOrphaned " removes all orphaned sessions with no working directory left.

:SessionSearch " open a session picker, uses Telescope if installed, vim.ui.select otherwise

:Autosession search " open a vim.ui.select picker to choose a session to load.
:Autosession delete " open a vim.ui.select picker to choose a session to delete.

If you create a manually named session via SessionSave my_session or you restore one, that same session will be auto-saved (assuming that's enabled) when you exit.

📖 More Configuration Details

🔭 Session Lens

You can use Telescope to see, load, and delete your sessions. It's enabled by default if you have Telescope, but here's the Lazy config that shows the configuration options:

{
  'rmagatti/auto-session',
  lazy = false,
  keys = {
    -- Will use Telescope if installed or a vim.ui.select picker otherwise
    { '<leader>wr', '<cmd>SessionSearch<CR>', desc = 'Session search' },
    { '<leader>ws', '<cmd>SessionSave<CR>', desc = 'Save session' },
    { '<leader>wa', '<cmd>SessionToggleAutoSave<CR>', desc = 'Toggle autosave' },
  },

  ---enables autocomplete for opts
  ---@module "auto-session"
  ---@type AutoSession.Config
  opts = {
    -- ⚠️ This will only work if Telescope.nvim is installed
    -- The following are already the default values, no need to provide them if these are already the settings you want.
    session_lens = {
      -- If load_on_setup is false, make sure you use `:SessionSearch` to open the picker as it will initialize everything first
      load_on_setup = true,
      previewer = false,
      mappings = {
        -- Mode can be a string or a table, e.g. {"i", "n"} for both insert and normal mode
        delete_session = { "i", "<C-D>" },
        alternate_session = { "i", "<C-S>" },
        copy_session = { "i", "<C-Y>" },
      },
      -- Can also set some Telescope picker options
      -- For all options, see: https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim/blob/master/doc/telescope.txt#L112
      theme_conf = {
        border = true,
        -- layout_config = {
        --   width = 0.8, -- Can set width and height as percent of window
        --   height = 0.5,
        -- },
      },
    },
  }
}

You can use :SessionSearch to launch the session picker. If load_on_setup = false, :SessionSearch will initialize the Telescope extension when called. You can also use :Telescope session-lens to launch the session picker but only if load_on_setup = true or you've previously called SessionSearch.

The following default keymaps are available when the session-lens picker is open:

• <CR> loads the currently highlighted session.
• <C-S> swaps to the previously opened session. This can give you a nice flow if you're constantly switching between two projects.
• <C-D> will delete the currently highlighted session. This makes it easy to keep the session list clean.

NOTE: If you previously installed rmagatti/session-lens, you should remove it from your config as it is no longer necessary.

Preview

📁 Allowed / Suppressed directories

There are two config options, allowed_dirs and suppressed_dirs, that control which directories AutoSession will auto-save a session for. If allowed_dirs is set, sessions will only be auto-saved in matching directories. If suppressed_dirs is set, then a session won't be auto-saved for a matching directory. If both are set, a session will only be auto-saved if it matches an allowed dir and does not match a suppressed dir.

Both options are a table of directories, with support for globs:

  allowed_dirs = { '/some/dir/', '/projects/*' }
  suppressed_dirs = { '/projects/secret' }

With those options, sessions would only be auto-saved for /some/dir and any direct child of /projects (e.g. /projects/myproject but not /projects/myproject/submodule) except /projects/secret

If you want even more fine-grained control, you can instead set auto_create to a function to conditionally create a session.

🚶 Current Working Directory

AutoSession can track cwd changes!

It's disabled by default, but when enabled it works as follows:

• DirChangedPre (before the cwd actually changes):
  • Save the current session
  • Clear all buffers %bw!. This guarantees buffers don't bleed to the next session.
  • Clear jumps. Also done so there is no bleeding between sessions.
  • Run the pre_cwd_changed hook
• DirChanged (after the cwd has changed):
  • Restore session using new cwd
  • Run the post_cwd_changed hook

Now when you changes the cwd with :cd some/new/dir AutoSession handles it gracefully, saving the current session so there aren't losses and loading the session for the upcoming cwd if it exists.

Hooks are available for custom actions before and after the cwd is changed. Here's the config for tracking cwd and a hook example:

require('auto-session').setup({
  suppressed_dirs = { '~/', '~/Projects', '~/Downloads', '/' },

  cwd_change_handling = true

  pre_cwd_changed_cmds = {
    "tabdo NERDTreeClose" -- Close NERDTree before saving session
  }

  post_cwd_changed_cmds = {
    function()
      require("lualine").refresh() -- example refreshing the lualine status line _after_ the cwd changes
    end
  }

})

🖥️ Dashboards

If you use a dashboard, you probably don't want to try and save a session when just the dashboard is open. To avoid that, add your dashboard filetype to the bypass list as follows:

require('auto-session').setup({
  bypass_save_filetypes = { 'alpha', 'dashboard' } -- or whatever dashboard you use
})

🪝 Command Hooks

Command hooks are a list of commands that get executed at different stages of the session management lifecycle.

Command hooks exist in the format: {hook_name}

• {pre_save}: executes before a session is saved
• {save_extra}: executes after a session is saved, saves returned string or table to *x.vim, reference :help mks
• {post_save}: executes after a session is saved
• {pre_restore}: executes before a session is restored
• {post_restore}: executes after a session is restored
• {pre_delete}: executes before a session is deleted
• {post_delete}: executes after a session is deleted
• {no_restore}: executes at VimEnter when no session is restored
• {pre_cwd_changed}: executes before a directory is changed (if cwd_change_handling is enabled)
• {post_cwd_changed}: executes after a directory is changed (if cwd_change_handling is enabled)

Each hook is a table of vim commands or lua functions (or a mix of both):

require('auto-session').setup {
  -- {hook_name}_cmds = {"{hook_command1}", "{hook_command2}"}

  pre_save_cmds = {
    "tabdo NERDTreeClose" -- Close NERDTree before saving session
  },

  post_restore_cmds = {
    "someOtherVimCommand",
    function()
      -- Restore nvim-tree after a session is restored
      local nvim_tree_api = require('nvim-tree.api')
      nvim_tree_api.tree.open()
      nvim_tree_api.tree.change_root(vim.fn.getcwd())
      nvim_tree_api.tree.reload()
    end
  },

  -- Save quickfix list and open it when restoring the session
  save_extra_cmds = {
    function()
      local qflist = vim.fn.getqflist()
      -- return nil to clear any old qflist
      if #qflist == 0 then return nil end
      local qfinfo = vim.fn.getqflist({ title = 1 })

      for _, entry in ipairs(qflist) do
        -- use filename instead of bufnr so it can be reloaded
        entry.filename = vim.api.nvim_buf_get_name(entry.bufnr)
        entry.bufnr = nil
      end

      local setqflist = 'call setqflist(' .. vim.fn.string(qflist) .. ')'
      local setqfinfo = 'call setqflist([], "a", ' .. vim.fn.string(qfinfo) .. ')'
      return { setqflist, setqfinfo, 'copen' }
    end,
  },

➖ Statusline

You can show the current session name in the statusline by using the function current_session_name(). With no arguments, it will return the full session name. For automatically created sessions that will be the path where the session was saved. If you only want the last directory in the path, you can call current_session_name(true).

Here's an example using Lualine:

require('lualine').setup{
  options = {
    theme = 'tokyonight',
  },
  sections = {
    lualine_c = {
      function()
        return require('auto-session.lib').current_session_name(true)
      end
    }
  }
}

⏮️ Last Session

This optional feature enables the keeping track and loading of the last session. The last session is only loaded at startup if there isn't already a session for the current working directory. This feature can come in handy when starting Neovim from a GUI for example.

⚠️ If the directory does not exist, default directory will be used and an error message will be printed.
⚠️ This feature is still experimental and as of right now it interferes with the plugin's ability to auto create new sessions when opening Neovim in a new directory.

require('auto-session').setup {
    auto_restore_last_session = true,
}

A quick workaround for inability to auto create new sessions is to conditionally enable last session.

require('auto-session').setup {
    auto_restore_last_session = vim.loop.cwd() == vim.loop.os_homedir(),
}

Now last session will be restored only when Neovim is launched in the home directory, which is usually right after launching the terminal or Neovim GUI clients.

Conditionally creating a session

With auto_create = false, AutoSession won't create a session automatically. If you manually save a session via :SessionSave, though, it will automatically update it whenever you exit nvim. You can use that to manually control where sessions are created.

auto_create doesn't just have to be a boolean, it can also take a function that returns if a session should be created or not as part of auto saving. As one example, you could use this to only automatically create new session files inside of git projects:

require('auto-session').setup({
  auto_create = function()
    local cmd = 'git rev-parse --is-inside-work-tree'
    return vim.fn.system(cmd) == 'true\n'
  end,
})

With the above, AutoSession will allow automatically creating a session inside of a git project but won't automatically create a session in any other directory. If you manually save a session in a directory, though, it will then update that session automatically whenever you exit nvim.

🗃️ Argument Handling

By default, when nvim is run with a single directory argument, AutoSession will try to restore the session for that directory. If nvim is run with multiple directories or any file arguments, AutoSession won't try to restore a session and won't auto-save a session on exit (if enabled). Those behaviors can be changed with these config parameters:

  args_allow_single_directory = true, -- boolean Follow normal sesion save/load logic if launched with a single directory as the only argument
  args_allow_files_auto_save = false, -- boolean|function Allow saving a session even when launched with a file argument (or multiple files/dirs). It does not load any existing session first. While you can just set this to true, you probably want to set it to a function that decides when to save a session when launched with file args. See documentation for more detail

For args_allow_single_directory, if you frequently use netrw to look at directories, you might want to add it to bypass_save_filetypes if you don't want to create a session for each directory you look at:

      bypass_save_filetypes = { 'netrw' }

Also, if you use a plugin that handles directory arguments (e.g. file trees/explorers), it may prevent AutoSession from loading or saving sessions when launched with a directory argument. You can avoid that by lazy loading that plugin (e.g. Oil, NvimTree).

If args_allow_files_auto_save is true, AutoSession won't load any session when nvim is launched with file argument(s) but it will save on exit. What's probably more useful is to set args_allow_files_auto_save to a function that returns true if a session should be saved and false otherwise. AutoSession will call that function on auto save when run with arguments. Here's one example config where it will save the session if at least two buffers are open after being launched with arguments:

require('auto-session').setup({
  args_allow_files_auto_save = function()
    local supported = 0

    local buffers = vim.api.nvim_list_bufs()
    for _, buf in ipairs(buffers) do
      -- Check if the buffer is valid and loaded
      if vim.api.nvim_buf_is_valid(buf) and vim.api.nvim_buf_is_loaded(buf) then
        local path = vim.api.nvim_buf_get_name(buf)
        if vim.fn.filereadable(path) ~= 0 then supported = supported + 1 end
      end
    end

    -- If we have more 2 or more supported buffers, save the session
    return supported >= 2
  end,
})

Another possibility is to only save the session if there are at least two windows with buffers backed by normal files:

require('auto-session').setup({
  args_allow_files_auto_save = function()
    local supported = 0

    local tabpages = vim.api.nvim_list_tabpages()
    for _, tabpage in ipairs(tabpages) do
      local windows = vim.api.nvim_tabpage_list_wins(tabpage)
      for _, window in ipairs(windows) do
        local buffer = vim.api.nvim_win_get_buf(window)
        local file_name = vim.api.nvim_buf_get_name(buffer)
        if vim.fn.filereadable(file_name) ~= 0 then supported = supported + 1 end
      end
    end

    -- If we have 2 or more windows with supported buffers, save the session
    return supported >= 2
  end,
})

🚫 Disabling the plugin

You might run into issues with Firenvim or another plugin and want to disable auto_session altogether based on some condition. For this example, as to not try and save sessions for Firenvim, we disable the plugin if the started_by_firenvim variable is set.

if exists('g:started_by_firenvim')
  let g:auto_session_enabled = v:false
endif

One can also disable the plugin by setting the auto_session_enabled option to false at startup.

nvim --cmd "let g:auto_session_enabled = v:false"

🚧 Troubleshooting

First run :checkhealth auto-session to see if it detects any problems.

If that doesn't help, you can:

• refer to the wiki page.
• check the Discussions
• or file an Issue

Compatibility

Neovim > 0.7

Tested with:

NVIM v0.7.2 - NVIM 0.10.1