Invalid node type "tab" for vim parser after commit 8cdffc6d #8369
Description
Describe the bug
After commit 8cdffc6 (Dec 20, 2025) which added "tab" to runtime/queries/vim/highlights.scm, users with distro-packaged tree-sitter-vim parsers get query errors.
Error:
Query error at 113:4. Invalid node type "tab":
"tab"
^
Environment:
- tree-sitter-vim: 0.7.0-1 (Arch package, built July 2025)
To Reproduce
- Install Neovim with Arch's tree-sitter-vim package
- Use nvim-treesitter at latest commit
- Use any plugin that parses vim commands (e.g., noice.nvim)
- Press
:to enter command mode → error appears
Expected behavior
No query error. The vim highlights query should be compatible with released tree-sitter-vim versions.
Output of :checkhealth nvim-treesitter
==============================================================================
nvim-treesitter: 1 ❌
Requirements ~
- ✅ OK Neovim was compiled with tree-sitter runtime ABI version 15 (required >=13).
- ❌ ERROR tree-sitter-cli not found
- ✅ OK tar 1.35.0 (/usr/bin/tar)
- ✅ OK curl 8.17.0 (/usr/bin/curl)
curl 8.17.0 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/8.17.0 OpenSSL/3.6.0 zlib/1.3.1 brotli/1.1.0 zstd/1.5.7 libidn2/2.3.8 libpsl/0.21.5 libssh2/1.11.1 nghttp2/1.68.0 nghttp3/1.13.1 mit-krb5/1.21.3
Release-Date: 2025-11-05
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher gophers http https imap imaps ipfs ipns mqtt pop3 pop3s rtsp scp sftp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp ws wss
Features: alt-svc AsynchDNS brotli GSS-API HSTS HTTP2 HTTP3 HTTPS-proxy IDN IPv6 Kerberos Largefile libz NTLM PSL SPNEGO SSL threadsafe TLS-SRP UnixSockets zstd
OS Info ~
- version: #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu, 18 Dec 2025 18:00:18 +0000
- sysname: Linux
- release: 6.18.2-arch2-1
- machine: x86_64
Install directory for parsers and queries ~
- /home/frazier/.local/share/nvim/site/
- ✅ OK is writable.
- ✅ OK is in runtimepath.
Installed languages H L F I J ~
- bash ✓ ✓ ✓ . ✓
- c ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
- diff ✓ . ✓ . ✓
- dtd ✓ ✓ ✓ . ✓
- ecma
- html ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
- html_tags
- javascript ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
- jsdoc ✓ . . . .
- json ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
- jsx
- lua ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
- luadoc ✓ . . . .
- luap ✓ . . . .
- markdown ✓ . ✓ ✓ ✓
- markdown_inline ✓ . . . ✓
- printf ✓ . . . .
- python ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
- query ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
- regex ✓ . . . .
- toml ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
- tsx ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
- typescript ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
- vim ✓ ✓ ✓ . ✓
- vimdoc ✓ . . . ✓
- xml ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
- yaml ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Legend: H[ighlights], L[ocals], F[olds], I[ndents], In[J]ections ~Output of nvim --version
Output of nvim --version:
NVIM v0.11.5
Build type: RelWithDebInfo
LuaJIT 2.1.1765228720
Additional context
Workaround: Pin nvim-treesitter to commit d0bf5ff (Dec 17, before the change).
The issue is that commit 8cdffc6 added a "tab" node reference to the vim query, but tree-sitter-vim 0.7.0 (current Arch/distro package) doesn't have this node type yet.