How to enter insert mode when entering Neovim terminal pane?

Question

I have the following mappings to make it easy to move out of a terminal pane in Neovim:

tnoremap <C-h> <C-\><C-n><C-w>h
" Workaround since <C-h> isn't working in Neovim right now
tnoremap <C-w>h <C-\><C-n><C-w>h
tnoremap <C-j> <C-\><C-n><C-w>j
tnoremap <C-k> <C-\><C-n><C-w>k
tnoremap <C-l> <C-\><C-n><C-w>l

The only problem is that when I move back into the terminal pane, I have to press i to get back into insert mode. I always want it to be in insert mode when I move into a Neovim pane that is running terminal. What's the best way to achieve this?

Answer 1

A terminal buffer name always starts with term://:

autocmd BufWinEnter,WinEnter term://* startinsert

Note that this will always put you in insert mode when you move to the terminal window, regardless of the mode you were using when leaving the window.

---

You can also use a similar autocommand to always get back in normal mode when you leave the terminal window, no matter how you leave this window:

autocmd BufLeave term://* stopinsert

Answer 2

On neovim, you can do:

          autocmd TermOpen * startinsert

Found in :help :terminal .

Answer 3

Entering a terminal buffer sets buftype to terminal, you can actually use this instead:

:au BufEnter * if &buftype == 'terminal' | :startinsert | endif

Answer 4

A lot of answers in this thread do not support reopening terminal buffer back. This autocmd will always enter terminal mode upon opening the terminal buffer.

In Lua:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ "TermOpen", "BufEnter" }, {
    pattern = { "*" },
    callback = function()
        if vim.opt.buftype:get() == "terminal" then
            vim.cmd(":startinsert")
        end
    end
})

Or in Vimscript:

:au TermOpen,BufEnter * if &buftype == 'terminal' | :startinsert | endif

If you use toggleterm, it may conflict with option persist_mode = true as it will revert to normal mode upon entering terminal.

Anyway you don't need this autocommand if you use toggleterm with options: start_in_insert = true, persist_mode = false.

Answer 5

Or even slightly better:

  function! TerminalOptions()
    " /* folded code */
    silent! au BufEnter <buffer> startinsert!
    silent! au BufLeave <buffer> stopinsert!
  endfunction
  au TerminalOpen * call TerminalOptions()

Which the <buffer> will make the au command to be applied locally, so only for the termial buffer type. This is also usefull for changing so setting for the terminal only. Such as swtich from relative lines to absolute ;)

Also..... I cant get :startinsert to work, even if all docs point to that. I had to do the following:

    au BufEnter <buffer> exec "normal! i"