It is 2:47 AM. I should be sleeping. Instead, I am staring at the Neovim 0.12 milestone on GitHub like it’s a lottery ticket and I’m about to find out if I’m a millionaire.

99%.

NINETY. NINE. PERCENT.

Two issues remain. Two. I have fewer problems than this milestone. The entire thing has more closure than my last three relationships combined, and yet here I am, refreshing the page every twelve minutes like some kind of automate​d desperation machine. The milestone was due yesterday. It says “March 28, 2026” in bold letters, and today is March 29, 2026, and I’m out here losing my absolute mind.

The Torture of Watching Paint Dry (But It’s a Text Editor)

Let me paint you a picture. You’ve been using Neovim for years. You’ve watched every release come and go. You survived 0.10. You even survived whatever the hell was happening with 0.11. But 0.12? 0.12 is different. 0.12 is the one where they finally kill “Press ENTER”. You know, that beautiful, glorious, soul-crushing moment where you try to quit and instead of exiting cleanly, the universe conspires to show you a message you’ve seen ten thousand times and asks you to please confirm your own decision to leave.

It’s happening. It’s actually happening. And I cannot - I cannot - handle the anticipation.

I’ve been checking the milestone so frequently that GitHub probably thinks I’m a bot. My browser history is just “neovim milestone 43” repeated 847 times like some kind of deranged code snippet. I wake up in the middle of the night and my first thought isn’t “is there a God?” or “why am I like this?” - it’s “is 0.12 out yet?” The answer is always no. Always. And yet I keep checking.

What We Are Getting (And Why I Am Physically Unwell)

The remaining issues? One is the release checklist - just bureaucratic garbage that probably says “make sure we didn’t forget anything” seventeen times. The other is extending vim.Pos and vim.Range, which sounds like some internal Lua API work that will make everything better once it’s done but right now feels like the world’s most annoying final boss.

Three hundred and forty issues closed. Three hundred and forty. I’ve closed fewer issues in my entire career than Neovim 0.12 has fixed in this one release. And the things we’ve gotten:

  • vim.pack - the built-in plugin manager that might finally let me delete my lazy.nvim config and weep softly at how simple everything could have been
  • Range-based tree-sitter highlighting - meaning my editor won’t sound like a jet engine taking off when I open files with long lines
  • LSP incremental selection - because apparently the developers decided we needed to navigate code like wizard-level magic users
  • No more Press ENTER - and I cannot stress this enough, I would die for this. I would kill for this. I would emotionally damage a small child for this. This single change has been the white whale of Neovim development for years and it’s finally, FINALLY landing.

Every single time I think about vim.pack I get a little emotional. A native plugin manager. In the editor. Written in Lua. No external dependencies. Just works. The sheer audacity of this project to make my life this much better without asking for anything in return.

A Day In The Life Of Someone Who Cannot Cope

Here is what my day looks like:

  • 6 AM: Wake up, check GitHub milestone, cry a little because it’s still at 99%
  • 9 AM: Try to work, fail, check GitHub again
  • 12 PM: Lunch. Can’t eat. Thinking about vim.pack
  • 3 PM: Actually accomplish some work, immediately check GitHub as a reward
  • 6 PM: Dinner. Can’t eat. Still thinking about vim.pack
  • 9 PM: Tell myself I’ll stop checking, check anyway
  • 2 AM: Current moment, writing this blog post instead of sleeping because I am not a functional human being anymore

My friends have stopped asking me to hang out because all I talk about is Neovim 0.12. My family thinks I’m having a crisis. My therapist suggested I “take a break from following development releases” and I laughed in her face because she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand that this isn’t just a text editor update. This is liberation. This is the death of “Press ENTER” and the birth of a new era where I can quit my editor without performing a ritual.

What I’m Going To Do When It Drops

When 0.12 finally drops - and it will drop, it has to drop, the universe owes me this - I’m going to do something radical. I’m going to:

  1. Update immediately, like the desperate addict I am
  2. Delete my plugin manager configuration and weep
  3. Open a file and not press ENTER when I quit
  4. Cry. Actually cry. I’m not ashamed.
  5. Write a blog post about how it feels to finally quit without pressing ENTER
  6. Send a thank you email to every Neovim contributor, even the ones who work on things I don’t understand

I estimate step 5 will take about 4,000 words because I have so much to say about not pressing ENTER.

To The Developers

Hey. Neovim developers. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know where you are. But I know you’re probably also staring at this milestone, maybe not as desperately as me, but close. I want you to know that I appreciate you. I appreciate the 340 closed issues. I appreciate the bug fixes I won’t understand but will benefit from. I appreciate the documentation updates and the CI improvements and whatever the hell goes into making a release actually work.

Just please. Please. Close those last two issues. Sign the checklist. Merge the Range PR. Let me rest. Let me finally rest.

I’ve been living in a state of perpetual anticipation for so long that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to not check GitHub at 2 AM. My fingers have muscle memory for pressing F5. My eyes have developed a permanent squint from scanning issue titles for “release” and “0.12” and “urgent.”

The Final countdown

It’s going to happen. It has to happen. The milestone is at 99%. The due date has passed. The world is ready. I’m ready. My fingers are ready. My soul is ready.

Any minute now.

Any minute.

I’m going to go check the milestone one more time. Then I’ll try to sleep. Probably won’t work. But that’s fine. This is fine. Everything is fine.

I’m not coping. I’m not supposed to be coping. This is the Neovim 0.12 experience. This is what it feels like to be this close to something so beautiful that you’d sell your soul for one more feature.

See you on the other side. Assuming there’s a 0.12. Assuming it comes out. Assuming the universe doesn’t decide to pull some cosmic joke and add three more issues at the last minute.

If you’ll excuse me, I need to go refresh a webpage for the 48th time today.