diffs.nvim

Syntax highlighting for diffs in Neovim

Enhance vim-fugitive and Neovim's built-in diff mode with language-aware syntax highlighting.

Features

Treesitter syntax highlighting in fugitive diffs and commit views
Character-level intra-line diff highlighting (with optional vscode-diff FFI backend for word-level accuracy)
:Gdiff unified diff against any revision
Background-only diff colors for &diff buffers
Inline merge conflict detection, highlighting, and resolution
Vim syntax fallback, configurable blend/debounce/priorities

Install with your package manager of choice or via luarocks:

luarocks install diffs.nvim

:help diffs.nvim

Incomplete syntax context: Treesitter parses each diff hunk in isolation. Context lines within the hunk ( prefix) provide syntactic context for the parser. In rare cases, hunks that start or end mid-expression may produce imperfect highlights due to treesitter error recovery.
Syntax flashing: diffs.nvim hooks into the FileType fugitive event triggered by vim-fugitive, at which point the buffer is preliminarily painted. The buffer is then re-painted after debounce_ms milliseconds, causing an unavoidable visual "flash" even when debounce_ms = 0.
Conflicting diff plugins: diffs.nvim may not interact well with other plugins that modify diff highlighting. Known plugins that may conflict:
- diffview.nvim - provides its own diff highlighting and conflict resolution UI
- mini.diff - visualizes buffer differences with its own highlighting system
- gitsigns.nvim - generally compatible, but both plugins modifying line highlights may produce unexpected results
- git-conflict.nvim - diffs.nvim now includes built-in conflict resolution; disable one or the other to avoid overlap

vim-fugitive
@esmuellert / codediff.nvim - vscode-diff algorithm FFI backend for word-level intra-line accuracy
diffview.nvim
difftastic
mini.diff
gitsigns.nvim
git-conflict.nvim
@phanen - diff header highlighting, unknown filetype fix, shebang/modeline detection, treesitter injection support