Backpack v0.5.3

Features

• ui: Add diff-hl gear — VCS change indicators in the fringe
  • Real-time updates via diff-hl-flydiff-mode
  • Dired integration and terminal margin fallback
  • amend flag for diffing against parent of HEAD
  • Transient menu on C-x p R: hunk navigation, reference revision control, amend toggle
  • Transient installs independently of the magit gear
• inventory: Parse keymap-set and define-key calls in gear files
  • Bindings in :config bodies and bare (when ...) blocks now appear in gear detail view

Bug Fixes

• Remove duplicate lexical-binding: t cookie
• Smarter buffer switching after killing current buffer
• direnv: Define advice at :init block of leaf
• Don't activate envrc when Backpack is cloned in user-emacs-directory
• Remove unconditional de-activation of tool-bar, menu-bar and splash screen
• Ensure ob-typescript is installed correctly by elpaca

Docs

• Update README.md

v0.5

What's Changed

• Codebase restructured: lisp/backpack.el split into separate files for better maintainability
• Anvil.el integration: New support for anvil.el with AI gear and backpack-user-after-init-hook
• More programming languages: Added gears for Clojure, HTML, and other tree-sitter grammars
• Consult gear: New gear for consult integration

• Pin grammar revisions by libtree-sitter ABI instead of Emacs version
• backpack-treesit-recipe! now inherits grammar recipes correctly
• Fixed tree-sitter-go pinned to revision matching Emacs 30.2
• Use :until-abi for new language gears
• Do not install markdown-ts-mode in Emacs 31+ (built-in)

• Corfu: terminal support, two new behavioral flags, auto-idle improvements
• Eldoc-box: works in daemon mode, fallback for terminal, dismiss with C-u C-h .
• Eglot hover behavior restored with flag to disable

• Initial YAML LSP protocol extensions for eglot
• Workspace configuration for YAML LSP
• TAB cycles indentation in yaml-ts-mode

• Fix mu4e gear
• Fix inventory :when gates skipping -prefixed guard checks
• Catch packages that fail to install and report why
• Catch throw when backpack ensure hangs
• Fix frame persistence when 2 frames remain
• drive-conf ignores envrc-related files
• Close window when eshell/eat/vterm exits
• Toggle shell buffers correctly

• Improved org-mode support and appearance (#17)
• Improved dired support
• Magit project status eagerly added to project-switch-commands
• Added manual test preparation script
• Removed persistence.el (frame state persistence feature dropped)

Full Changelog: v0.4.3...v0.5

Backpack Emacs v0.4.0

This release introduces the self-documenting inventory browser, a major new feature that makes Backpack fully self-documenting. It also adds support for 8 new programming languages and file formats, a refreshed README, and numerous quality-of-life improvements.

Highlights

Self-Documenting Inventory Browser (M-x backpack-inventory)

Backpack is now self-documenting. Press C-h B or run M-x backpack-inventory to browse all available pouches, gears and flags interactively. The inventory:

• Discovers pouches and gears automatically from the filesystem
• Parses gear source files on demand using Emacs's read function -- no annotations or metadata files required
• Shows three navigable levels: pouch listing -> gear listing -> gear detail
• Displays enabled/disabled/default-on status, flags, external tool requirements (with required/optional/conflicts levels), required fonts, example gear! snippets, and pinned package versions
• Features a Doom Emacs-inspired UI with a header bar, nerd-icons support (with graceful fallback), cursor-face highlighting, and tooltips
• Opens in a right side window by default (configurable via backpack-inventory-display-action)

New Language & File Format Support

• Haskell (:editing haskell) -- with LSP, tree-sitter, and org-babel integration
• Rust (:editing rust) -- with LSP, tree-sitter, cargo integration, and org-babel support
• TOML (:editing toml) -- with tree-sitter support
• YAML (:editing yaml) -- with tree-sitter support
• Terraform (:editing terraform) -- with LSP and tree-sitter support
• Markdown (:editing markdown) -- major mode for Markdown files
• reStructuredText (:editing rst) -- major mode for rST files
• LaTeX (:editing latex) -- AUCTeX with tree-sitter support

New Default Features

• which-key is now enabled by default in :config default -- displays available keybindings in a popup as you type. Uses the built-in version on Emacs 30+, installs the package on Emacs 29.x. Disable with -which-key.
• *Help* buffers now open in a right side window (40% width) instead of splitting the current window.

New Gears & Tools

• :tools cool-motions -- smart motions: C-a cycles between first non-whitespace character and beginning of line
• :editing emacs-lisp -- Emacs Lisp support with lispy and let-completion
  Improvements
• :doctor keyword extended -- now supports requirement levels: required, optional (default), and (conflicts "other-binary"). The inventory groups tools by level when a gear uses mixed levels.
• Package display -- gear detail view now shows all pinned packages with short refs and GitHub repo info where applicable.
• Tree-sitter fixes -- correctly set hooks and remap major modes to tree-sitter modes across all language gears.
• WSL clipboard fix -- killed/copied text now correctly reaches the Windows clipboard under WSL.
• saveplace enabled -- remembers cursor position in previously visited files.
• savehist location -- history file moved to the nonessential cache directory.
• Elpaca ref updates -- elpaca now properly updates repositories when the pinned ref changes in a leaf block.
• Lexical binding -- enabled on all files that were missing it.
• Magit and friends updated -- bumped to latest pinned refs.

Documentation

• AGENTS.md -- comprehensive documentation for AI coding agents, covering architecture, boot sequence, gear file conventions, the gear!/gearp! macro system, naming conventions, the inventory system, testing, and all project rules.
• README converted to Markdown -- README.org replaced with README.md. The manual feature listing is replaced by a reference to backpack-inventory, since the starter kit is now self-documenting.

Bug Fixes

• Fix mu4e header lengths
• Fix hard-coded paths replaced with variables
• Fix add-to-list calls passing wrong type
• Fix yaml-mode activation for .yml files

Full Changelog: v0.3.0...v0.4.0

v0.3.0

What's Changed

• new: [vibe code] Improve usage of elpaca, add new command and more by @shackra in #8

Full Changelog: v0.2.1...v0.3.0

v0.2.1: Fast initialization times

What's Changed

• chg: Reduce startup time of GNU Emacs by @shackra in #6

Full Changelog: v0.2.0...v0.2.1

v0.2.0

What's Changed

• chg: Rename pouch :programming to :editing by @shackra in #3
• new: Completion with Vertico, turned on by default by @shackra in #4

Full Changelog: v0.1.0...v0.2.0

v0.1.0

What's Changed

• new: Essential changes by @shackra in #1

New Contributors

• @shackra made their first contribution in #1

Full Changelog: https://github.com/shackra/backpack/commits/v0.1.0