TIL - Neovim automatic highlighting references with LSP

Today I learned a pretty cool LSP feature - automatic highlighting of references for the current text position:

To make it work, a few requirements have to be met:

• Your LSP must support such capabilities
• Your colorscheme must support highlight groups defined
• Make it work by introducing autocommands on CursorHold and CursorMoved

See :h document_highlight for more details.

Here’s an example configuration for NeoVim 0.7+:

    -- Server capabilities spec:
    -- https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/specifications/lsp/3.17/specification/#serverCapabilities
    if client.server_capabilities.documentHighlightProvider then
        vim.api.nvim_create_augroup("lsp_document_highlight", { clear = true })
        vim.api.nvim_clear_autocmds { buffer = bufnr, group = "lsp_document_highlight" }
        vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("CursorHold", {
            callback = vim.lsp.buf.document_highlight,
            buffer = bufnr,
            group = "lsp_document_highlight",
            desc = "Document Highlight",
        })
        vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("CursorMoved", {
            callback = vim.lsp.buf.clear_references,
            buffer = bufnr,
            group = "lsp_document_highlight",
            desc = "Clear All the References",
        })
    end

Or for the older versions:

  if client.resolved_capabilities.document_highlight then
    vim.api.nvim_exec(
      [[
      augroup lsp_document_highlight
        autocmd! * <buffer>
        autocmd CursorHold <buffer> lua vim.lsp.buf.document_highlight()
        autocmd CursorMoved <buffer> lua vim.lsp.buf.clear_references()
      augroup END
    ]], false)
  end

Unfortunately, my colorscheme of choice, OceanicNext, doesn’t support such highlight groups, so I had to migrate to the one with support.

I haven’t decided yet which one I’ll be using, but so far I have the following candidates:

• tokyonight.nvim
• gruvbox.nvim
• kanagawa.nvim