Enum Action 

pub enum Action {
    Move(Motion),
    Operator(Operator),
    ApplyOperator {
        op: Operator,
        motion: Motion,
    },
    Edit(Edit),
    ChangeMode(Mode),
    Command {
        name: String,
        args: Vec<String>,
    },
    InsertChar(char),
    SubmitCommand,
    Undo,
    Redo,
    Save,
    Quit,
    SearchOpen(Direction),
    SearchRepeat {
        reverse: bool,
    },
    SearchWord {
        reverse: bool,
    },
    ClearSearchHighlight,
    SearchSubmitOperated {
        op: Operator,
    },
    TextObject(TextObject),
    ApplyOperatorObject {
        op: Operator,
        object: TextObject,
    },
    RepeatLastChange,
    JumpBack,
    JumpForward,
    Backspace,
    PromptCaret {
        to: CaretMove,
    },
    SearchPreviewStep {
        forward: bool,
    },
    DeleteForward,
    DeleteWordBefore,
    DeleteToLineStart,
    PromptHistory {
        back: bool,
    },
    Pending,
}

A fully-resolved editor action — what the keymap emits, what the buffer consumes.

Variants

Move(Motion)

Move every cursor by motion.

Operator(Operator)

Begin an operator (the d/c/y key). The editor enters operator-pending: the next motion composes into an Action::ApplyOperator. Resolved by the operator-pending FSM, never executed directly.

ApplyOperator

Apply a pending operator over a motion (delete-word, yank-line, etc.).

Fields

op: Operator

motion: Motion

Edit(Edit)

Apply a primitive edit at each cursor.

ChangeMode(Mode)

Enter the given mode.

Command

Run a named command (via the command registry).

Fields

name: String

args: Vec<String>

InsertChar(char)

Insert a character at each caret. Separate from Edit so the keymap can stay ignorant of rope details.

SubmitCommand

Submit a minibuffer / command-mode line (e.g. :w, :q).

Undo

Undo / redo one change.

Redo

Save

Save the current buffer.

Quit

Quit the editor.

SearchOpen(Direction)

Open the search prompt in direction (the / and ? keys).

The prompt reuses Mode::Command rather than adding a mode variant: vim’s / IS the command-line with a different prompt character, and this module’s own doc states new modes are layered through pending state, not new variants. SearchState’s typed Option<Prompt> is what disambiguates a <CR> that submits a search from one that submits an ex-command — a discriminator that cannot be forgotten, unlike a bool.

SearchRepeat

n (reverse = false) / N (reverse = true) — jump to the next match, relative to the direction the search was committed with, so N after a ? search moves forward.

Fields

reverse: bool

SearchWord

* (reverse = false) / # (reverse = true) — search the whole word under the cursor. Literal, not regex: the word may contain . or [ and the user means those characters.

Fields

reverse: bool

ClearSearchHighlight

:noh — stop highlighting matches while keeping the pattern, so n still works. Distinct from cancelling a search.

SearchSubmitOperated

d/foo<CR> — commit the open search prompt and apply op from the prompt’s ORIGIN to wherever the search lands.

Emitted only by the operator-pending machine; no keymap produces it. It exists because committing a search MOVES the cursor, and the operator needs the pre-move position as its start point. Carrying the operator through the commit makes “operate over a search” one atomic action instead of two steps racing to own the cursor.

Fields

op: Operator

TextObject(TextObject)

gn / gN — the next/previous match AS AN OBJECT.

Not a motion. A motion resolves to a POINT and an operator acts over [cursor, point); gn names an EXTENT that need not start at the cursor, so dgn deletes the whole match wherever it is. That distinction is why this is its own action rather than a Motion variant — folding it into Motion would silently give [cursor, match.start), which deletes the text BEFORE the match.

ApplyOperatorObject

{operator}gn — apply op over a text object’s extent.

Emitted only by the operator-pending machine.

Fields

op: Operator

object: TextObject

RepeatLastChange

. — repeat the last text change.

Vim’s most-used key, and the half that makes cgn a workflow rather than a curiosity: cgn changes the next match, then . changes the one after it, giving a per-instance confirmable rename with no multi-cursor machinery.

JumpBack

<C-o> — walk back to where the last far jump was taken from.

Lives beside the search actions because search is what made it necessary — committing a / used to be a one-way door — but it is not a search action: G, gg, % and tag jumps are the other consumers.

JumpForward

<C-i> — walk forward again after Action::JumpBack.

Backspace

<BS> — delete the character BEFORE the caret, wherever the caret is.

ONE action, three targets, routed by the runtime: the search prompt, the ex command-line, or the buffer in Insert mode. It is deliberately not three actions — a face binding <BS> should not have to know which of the three the operator is currently typing into, and the routing question (“is a prompt open?”) is already answered by typed state the runtime owns.

Named PromptBackspace until 2026-08-09, when the Insert-mode target landed. The old name was the honest one while the buffer arm did not exist — text_effect below already described the buffer arm as though it did, which is how it went unnoticed that Insert mode had NO way to erase a character.

PromptCaret

Move the caret inside an open prompt (← → Home End).

The prompt was append-only until this existed, so a typo in the middle of a pattern could only be fixed by deleting back to it.

Fields

to: CaretMove

SearchPreviewStep

<C-g> / <C-t> — step the search PREVIEW to the next/previous match without committing.

Distinct from n in the one way that matters: this is still cancellable. Escape returns to where the search started, which n after a commit cannot do.

Fields

forward: bool

DeleteForward

<Del> — delete the character AT the caret, wherever the caret is.

The forward-delete sibling of Action::Backspace, routed the same way. Never closes a prompt: emptying the text by deleting rightwards is not the “backspaced past the /” gesture that means “I changed my mind”.

DeleteWordBefore

<C-w> — delete the word before the caret, wherever the caret is.

The word-sized member of the same erase family as Action::Backspace: ONE action, three targets (search prompt / ex line / buffer), routed by the runtime on typed state it already owns.

Named PromptDeleteWord until 2026-08-09, when the Insert-mode target landed. <BS> and <Del> had been given their buffer arm that morning and these two were left behind, so Insert mode could erase one character at a time and nothing larger — the half-migration is exactly what the Prompt prefix was hiding.

DeleteToLineStart

<C-u> — delete from the caret back to the start of the line.

The line-sized member of the erase family; routed exactly like Action::DeleteWordBefore. In the buffer it stops at the first non-blank before falling through to column 0, so the first press on an indented line clears what was typed and the second clears the indent — vim’s two-step, which is what keeps <C-u> from eating alignment you wanted to keep.

PromptHistory

Up/Down inside a prompt — walk search history.

back = true is older. Stepping forward past the newest entry restores the text that was being typed when browsing began, so arrowing through history and back never destroys a half-typed pattern.

Fields

back: bool

Pending

No-op — used when a key sequence is pending but not yet complete.

Implementations

impl Action

pub const fn text_effect(&self) -> TextEffect

Classify this action’s effect on buffer text.

Total over Action — no wildcard arm. A new variant fails to compile here rather than silently defaulting to “preserves”, which is the direction that produces a stale-cache bug rather than a slow one.

Deliberately CONSERVATIVE where a variant’s reach is open-ended: Command/SubmitCommand can run an ex-command that edits. It is not conservative for Backspace/DeleteForward — those genuinely edit the buffer outside a prompt. This paragraph claimed they did for months before the Insert-mode arm was written; the classifier was right about the design and the executor had simply never implemented it. Over-reporting costs one extra scan; under-reporting paints the wrong columns, so the asymmetry decides the genuinely doubtful cases.

impl Action

pub const fn highlight_effect(&self) -> HighlightEffect

Classify this action’s effect on search highlighting.

Total over Action — no wildcard arm. “We forgot to clear on the new command” becomes unconstructible rather than remembered: adding a variant forces the decision here.

impl Action

pub const fn edits_prompt(&self) -> bool

Does this action edit or navigate an OPEN PROMPT, rather than doing something to the buffer?

The operator-pending machine needs this: during d/foo the operator must survive every keystroke that is part of composing the pattern, and disarm on anything that is not.

Total over Action — no wildcard arm, and that totality is the whole point. The machine originally listed the prompt actions inline; when PromptCaret, DeleteForward, DeleteWordBefore, DeleteToLineStart and SearchPreviewStep were added later, none was added to that list, so pressing ← or <C-g> midway through d/foo silently disarmed the operator — reintroducing exactly the defect the AwaitingSearch state had been created to fix. A new prompt action now cannot be added without deciding here.

Trait Implementations

impl Clone for Action

fn clone(&self) -> Action

Returns a duplicate of the value.

fn clone_from(&mut self, source: &Self)

Performs copy-assignment from source.

impl Debug for Action

fn fmt(&self, f: &mut Formatter<'_>) -> Result

Formats the value using the given formatter.

impl<'de> Deserialize<'de> for Action

fn deserialize<__D>(__deserializer: __D) -> Result<Self, __D::Error>

where __D: Deserializer<'de>,

Deserialize this value from the given Serde deserializer.

impl Eq for Action

impl JsonSchema for Action

fn schema_name() -> String

The name of the generated JSON Schema.

fn schema_id() -> Cow<'static, str>

Returns a string that uniquely identifies the schema produced by this type.

fn json_schema(generator: &mut SchemaGenerator) -> Schema

Generates a JSON Schema for this type.

fn is_referenceable() -> bool

Whether JSON Schemas generated for this type should be re-used where possible using the $ref keyword.

impl PartialEq for Action

fn eq(&self, other: &Action) -> bool

Equality operator ==.

fn ne(&self, other: &Rhs) -> bool

Inequality operator !=.

impl Serialize for Action

fn serialize<__S>(&self, __serializer: __S) -> Result<__S::Ok, __S::Error>

where __S: Serializer,

Serialize this value into the given Serde serializer.

impl StructuralPartialEq for Action