Neovim Scratch Buffer

A Neovim plugin for quick scratch notes in a floating window. Supports three note types: temporary (in-memory), local (per-project, saved to disk), and global (shared across projects, saved to disk). Switch between them with Tab/S-Tab.

Features

• Floating scratch window with markdown and Treesitter highlighting.
• Temporary notes — in-memory, never written to disk.
• Local notes — persisted per-project (.scratch.md at the git root).
• Global notes — persisted across projects (stdpath("data")/scratch.nvim/global.md).
• Cycle between note types with Tab / S-Tab.
• Notes auto-save on close, type switch, and VimLeavePre.
• Configurable window size, border, title, and behavior.

Installation

Lazy

{
    "reybits/scratch.nvim",
    lazy = true,
    keys = {
        { "<leader>ts", "<cmd>ScratchToggle<cr>", desc = "Toggle Scratch Buffer" },
    },
    cmd = {
        "ScratchToggle",
    },
    opts = {},
}

Configuration

Default options:

opts = {
    title = "Scratch",
    border = "rounded",
    width = 0.6,
    height = 0.6,

    -- enable per-project notes
    local_notes = true,

    -- enable global notes
    global_notes = true,

    -- filename for local notes
    local_notes_file = ".scratch.md",

    -- close window when leaving the buffer
    close_on_leave = true,

    -- window-local options (vim.wo)
    win_opts = {
        wrap = true,
        linebreak = true,
    },
}

Set local_notes = false or global_notes = false to disable a note type. When only one type is enabled, the type label and switch keymaps are hidden.

win_opts accepts any vim.wo option. For example:

opts = {
    win_opts = {
        wrap = true,
        linebreak = true,
        number = true,
    },
}

Usage

Commands

• :ScratchToggle — Open or close the scratch window.

Keymaps (inside the scratch window)

Key	Action
q	Close the scratch window
R	Reset (clear) the current note
Tab	Switch to next note type
S-Tab	Switch to previous note type

Lua API

• require('scratch').toggle() — Toggle the scratch window.
• require('scratch').close() — Close the scratch window.
• require('scratch').reset() — Clear the current note buffer.
• require('scratch').next_type() — Switch to the next note type.
• require('scratch').prev_type() — Switch to the previous note type.

License

MIT License

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to open issues or submit pull requests.