# vim-airline

lean & mean status/tabline for vim that's light as air

Repository: https://github.com/vim-airline/vim-airline
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/vim-airline
Language: Vim Script
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: vim-airline, statusline, tabline, vim, vim-plugin
Last push: 2026-07-25T17:16:51+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 80/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 94, release rhythm 50, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4812, "days_push": 39, "days_rel": 123, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 17959, forks 1101 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:20.577075+00:00)

## What it is
vim-airline is a Vim plugin that provides a lean, fast statusline and tabline for the Vim editor, displaying mode, VCS branch info, filename, encoding, and cursor position by default. Its companion vim-airline-themes repository supplies a collection of prebuilt themes for styling the statusline.

## Use cases
- show a statusline at the bottom of vim windows
- display the current vim mode and file information while editing
- show git branch and hunk summary in the vim statusline
- get a lightweight powerline-style statusline without extra dependencies
- add a tabline showing open buffers and tabs in vim
- apply prebuilt themes to style my vim statusline
- customize what vim shows in the status and tab lines

## When to choose
- You use Vim (or Neovim) and want a fast, sensible statusline that works out of the box
- You want a lightweight Powerline alternative written purely in Vim Script with no external dependencies
- You want built-in integration points for VCS info and third-party plugins like linters and syntax checkers
- You want easy theming via the companion vim-airline-themes collection

## When to avoid
- You prefer configuring your editor UI in Lua, e.g. lualine on Neovim
- You want a statusline for editors other than Vim/Vim-compatible editors
- You need an extremely minimal setup and are comfortable hand-rolling Vim's built-in 'statusline' option

## Facets
- artifact type: plugin
- maturity: stable
- function: editor, developer-tools, theme
- domain: developer-tools, text-editors
- platform: cross-platform, cli, windows
- tags: vim-plugin, statusline, tabline, vim-script, powerline-alternative, editor-customization, themes, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- vim-airline/vim-airline (main) score 80
- vim-airline/vim-airline-themes (plugin) score 52

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:20.577075+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:02:12.734228+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/vim-airline/vim-airline (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:20.577075+00:00, sha 8162a5e97022)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.