NeuroVim (vim-dojo)

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Learn Vim by playing a cyberpunk spy-thriller — inside Obsidian.

An AI handler named CIPHER assigns you "missions" that are really Vim exercises: restore CORP-corrupted transmissions, beat the clock, earn XP. You learn Vim almost by accident; the story is the hook.

NeuroVim originally started life as an Obsidian plugin, then grew into a multi-target game (neurovim-standalone: web + desktop + Obsidian). vim-dojo brings it back home as a first-class, standalone Obsidian plugin.

Features

• 54 playable missions across two story arcs — 40 story transmissions and 14 katas, each one a Vim exercise disguised as a transmission repair job. Missions unlock as you level up.
• Real Vim, real notes. Missions materialize as throwaway notes you edit with Obsidian's own Vim mode — not a simulator, not a sandbox widget.
• Mission HUD with live line progress, elapsed time, keystroke count, and a diff highlight that clears each line the moment you get it right.
• Hints on demand — character-precise, showing exactly where your line diverges (ex»it« vs ex»fil«).
• XP, levels, and best scores per mission (time and keystrokes), so a mission you already solved becomes a speedrun target.
• Pause-safe. Leave the mission note and the timer stops, Vim mode is restored, and a banner offers RETURN or ABORT — no phantom keystrokes from typing elsewhere.
• CIPHER uplink (optional) — in-character Vim advice and post-run debriefs from any OpenAI-compatible LLM endpoint, including fully local ones.
• Cheatsheet — a searchable Vim reference built into the pane.

Requirements

• Obsidian 1.7.2 or newer, desktop or mobile.
• Obsidian's Vim mode (Settings → Editor → Vim key bindings) for the intended experience. Without it the game still works — you just fix transmissions without Vim keybindings, which rather misses the point.
• Optional, for CIPHER only: an OpenAI-compatible endpoint (LM Studio, Ollama, OpenRouter, …). Leave the endpoint list empty and the whole feature stays off. Setting up a local LLM server is covered once, centrally, in the local LLM setup guide — including the /v1 pitfall and reaching your desktop server from a phone.

Install

From the community store: Settings → Community plugins → Browse → search "NeuroVim" → Install → Enable.

Manually, from a release: download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/neurovim/, then enable NeuroVim under Community plugins.

Building from source is described under Develop / build from source.

Usage

Open the pane via the ribbon's terminal icon or the command NeuroVim: Open. It is organized in tabs:

• NEXUS — your status (level/XP), the welcome transmission, and a one-click "next mission" button.
• MISSIONS — the full mission list.
• GUIDE — a searchable Vim cheatsheet (filter by key or description).
• UPLINK — the CIPHER chat (appears once an endpoint is configured).

A mission runs like this:

1. Pick a mission (or hit "next mission"). A briefing explains the objective; BEGIN MISSION materializes the transmission as a note and starts the timer.
2. Fix the corrupted lines in the note using Vim. The HUD tracks progress, time and keystrokes; HINT points at the first line that still diverges.
3. SUBMIT when the text matches. You earn XP, and your time and keystroke count are recorded — beating them later is the actual game.

Commands available in the palette: NeuroVim: Open, NeuroVim: Submit mission, NeuroVim: Reset mission.

Configuration

Settings → NeuroVim, grouped into Missions, Appearance, and CIPHER uplink; each section remembers whether you left it open or closed.

Missions

• Mission folder — where throwaway mission notes are created (default _neurovim/).
• Auto Vim mode — turn Obsidian's Vim mode on while a mission is active and restore your previous setting when it ends. Note that this changes your global editor Vim setting for the duration.
• Open pane on startup — off by default; the pane opens only when you ask for it.
• Paused reminder after — minutes a paused mission may sit before the floating reminder appears; 0 disables it. A paused mission always shows in the status bar either way.
• Record run traces — see Run traces & privacy.

Appearance

• HUD placement — where mission control (timer, submit/reset/abort) appears during a mission. The floating box can also be dismissed per mission via its × button.
• CRT color scheme — on: a fixed cyberpunk look (dark background, phosphor green), theme-independent and always legible. Off: adaptive colors that blend into your light/dark Obsidian theme.

CIPHER uplink

• Endpoints — an ordered list rather than a single URL. The first reachable endpoint wins, so one synced list covers the same local LLM server showing up as localhost at your desk and as a LAN IP on the road. Add endpoints via presets or by typing a URL; "Test all" probes every entry and marks the active one. Existing single-endpoint configs from 0.4.x migrate automatically — nothing to do on upgrade.
• Model — picked from a dropdown populated by the active endpoint's /v1/models, with a free-text fallback if the list is empty or the endpoint is unreachable. When the endpoint reports it (LM Studio, Ollama), the model's context length is shown alongside.
• Model thinking — off by default, which is the faster path: CIPHER answers straight away instead of deliberating. Turn it on if you want the model to reason before answering. Models that always think (gpt-oss/harmony) are detected and the toggle disables itself with an explanation, since it can't turn those off anyway.
• API key — optional, for endpoints that require one.

How it works

• Content is bundled in the plugin — the story is earned by playing, never spoiled by files sitting in your vault. Missions unlock progressively as you level up.
• Menus, story, and progression live in a plugin pane (NEXUS). XP and best times are stored by the plugin (data.json).
• Missions materialize as throwaway notes in a folder you configure (default _neurovim/). You fix the transmission in a real Obsidian note with real Vim mode. Deleting a mission note — or the whole folder — loses no progress; the next mission re-creates it. (Fits the lore: transmissions are ephemeral.)

The plugin never touches files outside the configured mission folder.

CIPHER uplink (experimental, optional)

Ask CIPHER for Vim advice — in character, powered by any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (LM Studio, Ollama, OpenRouter, …). Configure endpoint + model under Settings → NeuroVim → CIPHER uplink; leave the endpoint list empty and the feature stays fully off. During a mission, the HUD gains a CIPHER button that opens the uplink with the mission's context attached.

Privacy: your questions plus the active mission's metadata (title, category, goal) are sent to the endpoint you configure — never any other vault content.

Run traces & privacy

NeuroVim can record the keystroke sequence of each successful mission to a local file (traces.jsonl, inside the plugin folder). This powers CIPHER's debrief ("you walked to word 3 with l l l — 3w is one move") and lets you analyse mission balance offline.

• Local only. Traces are written to your vault's plugin folder and never sent anywhere automatically. Requesting a CIPHER debrief sends that run's sequence to the LLM endpoint you configured (a local model via LM Studio/Ollama stays on your machine) — the same connection the CIPHER chat already uses.
• Scoped. Only keystrokes inside an active mission's editor are recorded. Nothing else in your vault is ever touched.
• Optional. Turn it off in Settings → "Record run traces". Delete traces.jsonl anytime.

Develop / build from source

npm install
npm run vendor    # snapshot @neurovim/core + @neurovim/content from the monorepo
npm run build     # → main.js
npm run gate      # lint + typecheck + tests

npm run vendor reads the monorepo from NEUROVIM_MONOREPO (default /Users/Shared/code/neurovim-standalone) and writes a pinned snapshot into src/vendor/neurovim/ (see src/vendor/neurovim/VENDOR.json). The monorepo remains the single source of truth for game logic and content.

npm run lint runs eslint-plugin-obsidianmd — the same rule set the community store scans with — at --max-warnings 0. Manual smoke test: docs/SMOKE-TEST.md.

Before opening a pull request, please read CONTRIBUTING.md — in particular which changes belong here and which belong in the monorepo. Architecture, conventions and known gotchas live in AGENTS.md.

Release

npm run release <version> follows the ecosystem's dual-push flow (Codeberg origin + GitHub mirror; the GitHub tag triggers the community-store release). The release tooling itself lives centrally in ../tools/release/, so releasing requires the repo to sit inside the obsidian-plugins/ workspace; building and testing work from a standalone clone. Prerequisites, set up once: a Codeberg repo as origin, a github remote (git remote add github git@github.com:<owner>/<repo>.git), and ~/.codeberg-token.

Security

The plugin never touches files outside the configured mission folder, and makes no network requests until you configure a CIPHER endpoint. What gets recorded, what gets sent where, and how to report a vulnerability privately: SECURITY.md.

License

• Code: GNU AGPL-3.0-or-later.
• Documentation & text: CC BY-SA 4.0.
• Missions and story: inherited from the monorepo under CC BY-SA 4.0.

A commercial license is available for uses the AGPL does not fit — see LICENSING.md.