flash

flash lets you navigate your code with search labels, enhanced character motions, and Treesitter integration.

Inspired by flash.nvim for Neovim.

Unlike avy, flash uses incremental search: you type as many characters as you want to narrow down matches, and labels appear alongside the results. Labels are assigned intelligently — characters that would continue the search pattern are never used as labels, so there is no ambiguity between searching and jumping.

• Search Integration: labels appear during regular C-s, /, ? search. Press a label character to jump instantly.
• Incremental input: type as many characters as you need before using a label. No fixed-length input.
• Enhanced f, t, F, T motions with multi-match labels.
• Treesitter Integration: select any parent node of the syntax tree at point with a single keystroke.
• Standalone Jump Mode (core feature): type a character, then press a label to jump where you need.
• Multi-window jumping across all visible windows.
• Evil integration: works as a proper evil motion (composable with operators like d, y, c).
• Remote Evil actions: select a distant target, yank or delete there, then return to where you started.

• Emacs >= 27.1
• Emacs >= 29.1 for Treesitter support
• Optional: evil-mode for Vim-style keybindings

flash is available on MELPA.

;; Add MELPA to package-archives if you haven't already:
;; (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/") t)

(use-package flash
  :commands (flash-jump flash-jump-continue flash-action flash-action-undo
             flash-treesitter)
  :bind ("s-j" . flash-jump)
  :custom
  (flash-multi-window t)
  :init
  ;; Evil integration (simple setup)
  (with-eval-after-load 'evil
    (require 'flash-evil)
    (flash-evil-setup t))  ; t = also set up f/t/F/T char motions
  :config
  ;; Search integration (labels during C-s, /, ?)
  (require 'flash-isearch)
  (flash-isearch-mode 1))

Or install interactively: M-x package-install RET flash RET.

(straight-use-package
 '(flash :type git :host github :repo "Prgebish/flash"))

(elpaca (flash :host github :repo "Prgebish/flash"))

M-x flash-jump starts an interactive search. Type characters to narrow matches, then press a label to jump.

With evil-mode: press gs (or s if you bind it manually). I personally find C-/ convenient — it is easy to reach and does not shadow any useful evil bindings.

M-x flash-jump-continue resumes the previous search with the same pattern. Useful when you want to jump again to another match of the same text.

flash-isearch-mode adds labels to your regular incremental search. It works with C-s (Emacs isearch), /, ? (evil-ex-search).

When enabled:

• Start a search as usual (C-s or /).
• As you type, labels appear next to each match.
• Press a label character to jump directly to that match.
• Press C-; to toggle labels on or off during a search.

Requires evil-mode. Set up keybindings with flash-evil-setup (pass t for char motions) or flash-char-setup-evil-keys manually. Then enable labels:

(setq flash-char-jump-labels t)

Without flash-char-jump-labels, f / t just jump to the first match (like normal evil motions). With it enabled, all matches get labels, so you can reach any match with a single keystroke instead of repeating ;.

• f{char} / F{char} — jump to character forward / backward.
• t{char} / T{char} — jump to just before character forward / backward.
• ; — repeat last motion.
• , — repeat last motion in reverse (if , is your localleader, rebind to e.g. \).

M-x flash-treesitter

Shows labels for all parent nodes of the Treesitter syntax tree at point, from the innermost to the outermost. Each label corresponds to a progressively larger region of code (e.g., identifier, expression, statement, function body, function definition). Press a label to select that entire node. With evil-mode, the selection enters visual state automatically.

This is useful for quickly selecting or operating on a surrounding code structure — for example, selecting an entire function, an if-block, or an argument list.

Requires evil-mode. flash-evil-setup binds gS in normal state only:

1. Press gS and type a search pattern.
2. Press the label at the remote location.
3. Enter a normal Evil yank/delete command.

For example, gS → price → a → yiw copies the word at label a, while gS → debug → s → dd deletes the line at label s. After the operation, Flash restores the original window, point, mark, and Evil state.

The action starts at the first character of the selected match. The rest of the range comes from native Evil grammar, so commands such as yy, dd, yiw, di(, y$, d2w, 2dw, and register prefixes such as "ayy work normally. Direct Y, D, x, and X are supported too.

Only yank and delete operations are accepted. There is no ym=/=dm search match object, no editing/paste actions, and no Embark integration. gS is not bound in visual or operator-pending state; the existing gs remains the Flash motion for compositions such as d gs, y gs, and c gs.

Undo history belongs to the changed buffer. Use M-x flash-action-undo to undo the last remote deletion without visiting its buffer. The command refuses if that buffer has been edited since the remote action.

• overlay (default) — label replaces the first character of the match.
• pre-overlay — label replaces the character before the match. The match text stays fully readable and there is no text shift. Falls back to overlay when the match is at the beginning of a line or buffer.
• after — label is inserted after the match (flash.nvim default).
• before — label is inserted before the match.
• eol — label appears at the end of the line.

(use-package flash
  :custom
  (flash-labels "asdfjkl;ghqwertyuiopzxcvbnm")
  (flash-label-uppercase t)     ; double available labels (a-z + A-Z)
  (flash-multi-window t)
  (flash-autojump t)            ; auto-jump when single match
  (flash-backdrop nil)          ; no dimming
  (flash-rainbow t)             ; colorful labels
  (flash-rainbow-shade 2)       ; 1-9: pastel to dark
  (flash-highlight-matches t)
  (flash-label-position 'overlay)
  (flash-char-jump-labels t)    ; labels on f/t/F/T matches
  (flash-nohlsearch t)          ; clear highlight after jump
  (flash-search-history t))     ; save patterns to isearch history

flash-evil-setup configures all evil keybindings in one call:

(require 'flash-evil)
(flash-evil-setup t)  ; t = also set up f/t/F/T char motions

This binds gs to flash-evil-jump in normal, visual, motion, and operator states, and gS to flash-action in normal state only. With the optional argument, it also replaces f, t, F, T with flash-enhanced versions.

If you prefer different keybindings:

(require 'flash-evil)
(evil-global-set-key 'normal (kbd "s") #'flash-evil-jump)
(evil-global-set-key 'visual (kbd "s") #'flash-evil-jump)
(evil-global-set-key 'normal (kbd "g S") #'flash-action)
;; Char motions
(flash-char-setup-evil-keys)

flash-evil-jump is a proper evil motion, so it composes with operators:

• d gs {label} — delete to target
• y gs {label} — yank to target
• v gs {label} — extend visual selection to target

Rainbow labels use dynamic colors from the Tailwind CSS palette (10 colors: red, amber, lime, green, teal, cyan, blue, violet, fuchsia, rose). The brightness is controlled by flash-rainbow-shade:

;; Change label appearance
(set-face-attribute 'flash-label nil
                    :background "#ff0000"
                    :foreground "#ffffff"
                    :weight 'bold)

;; Change match highlight
(set-face-attribute 'flash-match nil
                    :underline nil
                    :background "#ffff00"
                    :foreground "#000000")

;; Rainbow: pastel labels
(setq flash-rainbow t
      flash-rainbow-shade 2)

;; Rainbow: dark labels with light text
(setq flash-rainbow-shade 7)

• avy — jump to visible text using a char-based decision tree. Unlike flash, avy uses fixed-length input: you choose a target type (word, line, character), then press label keys. Flash lets you type an arbitrary search pattern first.
• ace-jump-mode — quick cursor movement (predecessor to avy).

Inspired by flash.nvim by folke.

If you find flash useful, consider giving it a star on GitHub — it helps others discover the project.

MIT