{fetchurl, stdenv, python, cmake, vim, perl, ruby}: /* About Vim and plugins ===================== Let me tell you how Vim plugins work, so that you can decide on how to orginize your setup. typical plugin files: plugin/P1.vim autoload/P1.vim ftplugin/xyz.vim doc/plugin-documentation.txt (traditional documentation) README(.md) (nowadays thanks to github) Traditionally plugins were installed into ~/.vim/* so it was your task to keep track of which files belong to what plugin. Now this problem is "fixed" by nix which assembles your profile for you. Vim offers the :h rtp setting which works for most plugins. Thus adding adding this to your .vimrc should make most plugins work: set rtp+=~/.nix-profile/vim-plugins/YouCompleteMe " or for p in ["YouCompleteMe"] | exec 'set rtp+=~/.nix-profile/vim-plugins/'.p | endfor Its what pathogen, vundle, vim-addon-manager (VAM) use. VAM's benefits: - allows activating plugins at runtime, eg when you need them. (works around some au command hooks, eg required for TheNerdTree plugin) - VAM checkous out all sources (vim.sf.net, git, mercurial, ...) - runs :helptags on update/installation only. Obviously it cannot do that on store paths. - it reads addon-info.json files which can declare dependencies by name (without version) VAM is made up of - the code loading plugins - an optional pool (github.com/MarcWeber/vim-addon-manager-known-repositories) That pool probably is the best source to automatically derive plugin information from or to lookup about how to get data from www.vim.org. I'm not sure we should package them all. Most of them are not used much. You need your .vimrc anyway, and then VAM gets the job done ? How to install VAM? eg provide such a bash function: vim-install-vam () { mkdir -p ~/.vim/vim-addons && git clone --depth=1 git://github.com/MarcWeber/vim-addon-manager.git ~/.vim/vim-addons/vim-addon-manager && cat >> ~/.vimrc <