Installation

Requirements

Dependency	Version	Notes
Neovim	0.10+	Uses vim.uv, vim.fs, and nvim-oxi 0.11 API features
Rust toolchain	stable	cargo and rustc must be on $PATH to compile the native library
Git	any recent	The plugin shells out to git for diffs, merge-base, file lists, etc.
Cursor CLI or Claude Code CLI		At least one: agent (via Cursor CLI) or claude (via npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code)
nvim-tree	recommended	Recommended for the file panel. A basic builtin tree ships by default, but nvim-tree provides file icons, review status signs, and familiar keybindings. See Integrations.

Platform support: macOS and Linux. No Windows support.

State directory: Review state, threads, and sessions are persisted to ~/.local/share/nvim/arbiter/ by default. Override with review.state_dir in config. Persisted state is version-stamped; upgrading the plugin automatically discards stale caches.

lazy.nvim

return {
  "tannaurus/nvim-arbiter",
  tag = "v0.0.8", -- pin to a release tag
  build = function()
    require("arbiter.build").download_or_build_binary()
  end,
  opts = {
    backend = "cursor",
    review = {
      default_ref = "main",
    },
  },
}

When the plugin is installed or updated to a tagged commit, the build function first tries to download a prebuilt binary from the matching GitHub Release. If no prebuilt is available, it falls back to cargo build --release. If the library isn't found at load time, the plugin triggers this process automatically. You can rebuild at any time with lazy.nvim's gb key.

packer.nvim

use {
  "tannaurus/nvim-arbiter",
  run = "cargo build --release",
  config = function()
    require("arbiter").setup({
      backend = "cursor",
      review = { default_ref = "main" },
    })
  end,
}

Manual

1. Clone the repo into your Neovim packages directory or anywhere on your runtimepath:

git clone https://github.com/tannaurus/nvim-arbiter.git \
  ~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/plugins/start/arbiter
cd ~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/plugins/start/arbiter
cargo build --release

2. Add to your init.lua:

require("arbiter").setup({
  backend = "cursor",
  review = {
    default_ref = "main",
  },
})

How the native library loads

On install or update, the build hook calls arbiter.build.download_or_build_binary() which:

1. Tries to download a prebuilt binary from GitHub Releases matching the current git tag (e.g. v0.1.0). Binaries are available for Linux (glibc, x86_64/aarch64) and macOS (x86_64/aarch64). If the current commit is not a tagged release, the download is skipped.
2. Validates the download by loading it with package.loadlib before replacing the current binary (atomic .tmp rename).
3. Falls back to cargo build --release if no prebuilt binary is available or the download fails.

At load time, lua/arbiter/init.lua searches multiple paths for the compiled library:

• target/release/libarbiter.{dylib,so} (relative to plugin root)
• $CARGO_TARGET_DIR/release/libarbiter.{dylib,so} (if set)

If no library is found, it triggers the download-or-build process automatically.

The library is loaded directly from the build output via package.loadlib (not Lua require), which avoids macOS code signature invalidation from file copies.

Health check

Run :checkhealth arbiter to verify your installation. It checks:

• Binary exists and loads correctly
• cargo, git, and a backend CLI are on $PATH
• All library search paths

Build from source

cargo build --release

Output: target/release/libarbiter.dylib (macOS) or libarbiter.so (Linux).