Oh My Zsh Compatibility

Summary

Zinit loads Oh My Zsh libraries, plugins, and themes as snippets using OMZ::, OMZL::, OMZP::, and OMZT:: shorthands, without requiring the full OMZ framework to be installed.

Details

Zinit provides URL shorthands that expand to raw GitHub paths inside the OMZ repository:

Shorthand	Expands to
OMZ::	https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/raw/master/
OMZL::	…/lib/
OMZP::	…/plugins/
OMZT::	…/themes/

Libraries are single .zsh files and load directly as snippets.

Plugins that consist of a single file also load as plain snippets. Plugins that span a subdirectory (e.g. gitfast, osx) require zi ice svn to download the whole directory via Subversion.

Themes typically require the OMZ git library to be loaded first, and many also need the OMZ async_prompt library. Most themes also require setopt promptsubst. Because OMZ plugins call compdef, run zi cdclear -q after loading the git plugin to avoid carrying its completions into the rest of the session.

Single-file completions (files whose names start with _) must be loaded with zi ice as"completion".

Zinit’s implementation is not OMZ-specific; it does not embed or depend on the OMZ framework — it simply downloads and sources the files.

Examples

# OMZ libraries
zi snippet OMZL::git.zsh
zi snippet OMZL::async_prompt.zsh

# OMZ plugin — single file
zi snippet OMZP::git
zi cdclear -q   # drop git plugin's compdefs if unwanted

# OMZ theme
setopt promptsubst
zi snippet OMZT::robbyrussell

# Multi-file plugin via SVN
zi ice svn
zi snippet OMZP::gitfast

# Single-file completion from a plugin directory
zi ice as"completion"
zi snippet OMZP::docker/_docker

# External theme (not in OMZ repo) — load as a plugin
zi snippet OMZL::git.zsh
zi snippet OMZP::git
zi cdclear -q
setopt promptsubst
zi light NicoSantangelo/Alpharized

# Multiple OMZ plugins at once
zi snippet OMZP::dotenv
zi snippet OMZP::rake
zi snippet OMZP::rbenv

Caveats / Common Mistakes

• OMZ themes that show git info will print errors (command not found: git_prompt_status) if OMZL::git.zsh is not loaded first.
• Do not set ZSH_THEME — that variable is consumed by the OMZ framework which is not present. Source the theme file directly instead.
• promptsubst must be set before loading a theme, otherwise the prompt renders as a literal string (e.g. $(build_prompt)).