chiquito

README

chiquito

A fast, terminal-based text editor for source code and Markdown, built in Go on the Bubble Tea TUI framework. Optimized for SSH and local terminals; Unicode/UTF-8 throughout.

Features

• Piece-table buffer — original file bytes are never copied; low memory, fast edits, full Unicode.
• Emacs-style keybindings, fully customizable (Emacs or Bubble Tea notation).
• File-browser pane — C-x C-f opens a selectable list of the current directory; type to fuzzy-filter (fzf-style ranking with matched-character highlighting), navigate, enter directories, open files.
• Incremental search and query-replace with a case-sensitivity toggle.
• Syntax highlighting via Chroma: ~250 languages and themeable colors (with a small builtin fallback).
• Asynchronous spell checking that never blocks typing.
• TOML configuration with live hot-reload.
• Secure file I/O: non-blocking open, rejects non-regular files, atomic saves (temp + fsync + rename) that preserve permissions and symlinks.

Install / build

go build -o chiquito ./cmd/chiquito
# or
go install argc.dev/chiquito/cmd/chiquito@latest

Requires Go 1.26+. Supported: Linux and macOS (tier 1); BSDs best-effort.

Usage

chiquito [flags] [file]      # open a file, or a scratch buffer with no argument

  -version            print version and exit
  -cpuprofile file    write a CPU profile
  -memprofile file    write a memory profile on exit

Default keybindings

Keys	Action		Keys	Action
C-f / C-b	forward / back char		C-s	incremental search
C-p / C-n	previous / next line		C-r	(in search) previous match
C-a / C-e	start / end of line		C-t	(in search) toggle case
C-d	delete char		M-%	query replace all
C-k	kill to end of line		C-x C-f	open file
arrows / Home / End / PgUp / PgDn	navigate		C-x C-s	save (prompts if unnamed)
Esc / C-g	cancel a prompt		C-x C-c	quit

With file_pane enabled (the default), C-x C-f opens a file-browser pane in the bottom rows: just start typing to fuzzy-filter the listing (best matches rank first); ↑/↓ (or C-p/C-n) to move, Enter to open a file or enter a directory, ⌫ to delete a filter character (or go up when the filter is empty), ← to go up, Esc to cancel. With file_pane = false it falls back to a text path prompt prefilled with a starting directory (the current file's directory, else the working directory, else home); there, as in Emacs, typing // resets to the filesystem root and /~ resets to home.

Configuration

A TOML config is created on first run (and hot-reloaded on change) at:

• ~/.config/chiquito/config.toml (Linux/BSD)
• ~/Library/Application Support/chiquito/config.toml (macOS)

Every field is optional; keybindings are merged over the defaults. See docs/config.example.toml for the full annotated schema.

Project layout & development

The editor core (internal/{buffer,editor,search,syntax,spell,config,fileio,fuzzy}) is framework-agnostic and does not import Bubble Tea; only internal/ui does. See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the design and docs/ROADMAP.md for the phased build history.

go test ./...                                   # unit + integration tests
go test -race ./...                             # race detector
go test -run=NONE -bench=. ./...                # benchmarks
go test -run=NONE -fuzz=FuzzInsertDelete ./internal/buffer/   # fuzzing
go vet ./...