tirenvi.nvim

Structural TIR editing for Neovim — pure text, always valid.

Raw CSV → structured table view → edit → redraw → undo/redo → back to raw.

Design Philosophy

• Vim-first
• Text-only buffer
• Structurally safe
• Fully reversible transformation
• No hidden metadata
• Always valid

Why?

CSV is text.

But it is also structure.

Tirenvi lets you edit structured tabular data without leaving Vim’s native editing model — while guaranteeing structural integrity.

You edit text. Tirenvi preserves structure.

Core Architecture

At the center is: TIR — Tabular Intermediate Representation

flat (csv, tsv, ...)
        ↓ external parser
TIR (intermediate representation)
        ↓ tirenvi
tir-vim (structured buffer view)

Editing happens in tir-vim format.

On save:

tir-vim → TIR → original flat format

Key principles:

• The buffer contains only text
• No hidden state
• No shadow buffer
• No custom buffer type
• Transformations are reversible
• The buffer is always structurally valid

Features

• Render CSV/TSV into aligned structured view
• Preserve original file format on save
• Automatic structural correction
• Toggle raw ↔ structured view
• External parser architecture (extensible)
• Works with all native Vim motions and operators
• No learning curve

Structural Integrity Model

Tirenvi is a strict editor.

• Invalid structural edits are detected
• In Normal mode: corrected immediately
• In Insert mode: corrected after leaving Insert
• Undo tree integrity is preserved
• Only leaf undo states are auto-corrected

Structural integrity is preserved in the current editing state.

Tirenvi respects Vim’s undo tree. Historical undo states are not modified, even if they contain temporary structural inconsistencies.

Installation

lazy.nvim

{
  "kibi2/tirenvi.nvim",
  config = function()
    require("tirenvi").setup()
  end,
}

vim-plug

Plug 'kibi2/tirenvi.nvim'

Requirements

• Neovim >= 0.9
• UTF-8 environment

Install CSV parser:

pip install tir-csv

Usage

Automatically activates for:

• .csv
• .tsv

Custom parser mapping:

require("tirenvi").setup({
  parser_map = {
    csv = { command = "tir-csv", options = {} },
    tsv = { command = "tir-csv", options = { "--delimiter", "\t" } },
  }
})

Commands

Command	Description
:Tir redraw	Recalculate column widths
:Tir toggle	Switch raw ↔ structured table view

All native Vim editing works.

• dd, yy, p, D, o, R, J, and more
• Command-line command
• Visual mode command

No special editing mode.

Column Editing

Columns are structural units.

To modify a column:

1. Enter Visual Block mode (<C-v>)
2. Select vertically
3. Apply standard operators (d, p, etc.)

Operations that would break structure are automatically corrected.

Pipe Motions

Fast horizontal navigation across cells.

vim.keymap.set({ 'n', 'o', 'x' }, '<leader>tf', require('tirenvi').motion.f, { expr = true })
vim.keymap.set({ 'n', 'o', 'x' }, '<leader>tF', require('tirenvi').motion.F, { expr = true })
vim.keymap.set({ 'n', 'o', 'x' }, '<leader>tt', require('tirenvi').motion.t, { expr = true })
vim.keymap.set({ 'n', 'o', 'x' }, '<leader>tT', require('tirenvi').motion.T, { expr = true })

They behave like Vim’s f/F/t/T, but target table separators.

; and , continue to repeat as usual.

What Tirenvi Is Not

• Not a spreadsheet
• Not a new editing mode
• Not a hidden AST editor
• Not a file-format converter

It is a structured text editor layer.

Roadmap

Next

• Markdown (GFM) support
• Text objects (table, row, column, cell)
• Column resize command

Future

• Header pinning
• Column formatting presets
• Multi-line cell editing
• Outline mode
• Optional non-strict mode (experimental)

Comparison

Feature	Tirenvi	csv.vim	Spreadsheet tools
Native Vim editing	✅	⚠️	❌
Always structurally valid	✅	❌	⚠️
No file format change	✅	❌	❌
No custom buffer type	✅	❌	❌
Toggle raw view	✅	❌	❌

Tirenvi prioritizes structural safety with Vim purity.

Contributing

The architecture centers around:

• flat ↔ TIR (external)
• TIR ↔ tir-vim (internal)

Large changes should respect this separation.

Please open an issue before major design proposals.

License

MIT License.