Emacs 31 is Around the Corner: The Features Worth Daily Driving

Emacs 31 is approaching release, and developer Rahul M. Juliato has been running the development branch since mid-2026. His writeup on the changes hit the front page of Hacker News with strong engagement - 391 points and 208 comments as of this writing.

The release continues a trend where core Emacs absorbs features that previously required external packages, gradually reducing configuration complexity for new and experienced users alike.

Tree-sitter Finally Gets Practical

The biggest quality-of-life improvement is automatic grammar installation.

Previously, using tree-sitter (the incremental parsing library that enables better syntax highlighting and code navigation) required manual configuration. You had to set up treesit-language-source-alist, fetch grammars, compile them, and configure your modes to use the tree-sitter variants.

Emacs 31 changes this with two new options:

• treesit-auto-install-grammar automatically fetches and builds missing grammars when you open a file
• treesit-enabled-modes automatically switches major modes to their tree-sitter variants

The release also ships built-in grammar sources for TypeScript, Rust, TOML, YAML, and Dockerfile - eliminating the need for manual configuration in most common cases.

One caveat noted in the original post: auto-installed grammars are not segregated by architecture. If you share your .emacs.d across different systems (say, an x86 Linux machine and an ARM Mac), you will need to handle architecture differences yourself.

Built-in Markdown Mode

markdown-ts-mode is a new experimental built-in mode that brings Org-like keybindings to Markdown editing:

• Syntax-highlighted code blocks using actual language modes
• Inline image rendering
• Org-mode-inspired navigation and folding

The mode is still experimental and requires manual activation via M-x load-library, but having a built-in option means less dependence on external packages for one of the most common file formats developers work with.

Window Management Commands

New commands simplify layout rearrangement:

• window-layout-transpose swaps horizontal/vertical arrangements
• window-layout-rotate-clockwise rotates the entire window layout
• window-layout-flip-leftright and window-layout-flip-topdown mirror layouts

These commands fill gaps that previously required custom elisp or third-party packages like transpose-frame.

Completion System Improvements

The minibuffer completion experience gets several enhancements:

• completion-eager-update refreshes suggestions while typing
• completion-eager-display set to 'auto' shows completions automatically
• minibuffer-visible-completions enables arrow-key navigation through candidates

These make vanilla Emacs completion feel more like modern completion frameworks without requiring external packages.

Terminal Finally Works Properly

The term buffer now correctly renders full-screen terminal applications like htop. This has been a longstanding pain point - Emacs' terminal emulation has historically struggled with applications that use the full terminal screen.

What HN is Saying

The Hacker News discussion is substantial and reflects the Emacs community's engagement with the editor's development.

On continued relevance:

One heavily-upvoted comment noted that after briefly switching to VSCode for AI integration, they have returned to 100% Emacs now that Claude works well inside the editor. The argument: "There just isn't anything like the old editors, built in the 80x24 terminal era, for getting huge swathes of code on your screen at once."

The commenter runs a widescreen monitor with three vertical Emacs windows, often splitting each into two frames, putting six contexts on screen simultaneously. "I'm not an IDE hater but they do put an awful lot of stuff on the screen that on a proportional basis I'm just not using as much as I use the code editor."

On the tree-sitter improvements:

Multiple commenters expressed excitement about the automatic grammar installation: "Sweet. GLP1 for my .emacs!" (referring to weight loss drugs that help reduce bloated configs).

The tree-sitter integration has apparently revitalized the project. As one commenter put it: "Somewhere around treesitter something seems to have revitalized the project... You end up with a lot more wood behind fewer arrows when the project is able to put more work into generally-useful tools rather than every single language community maintaining their own separate mode for each language."

On the vim emulation:

Discussion touched on evil-mode (Emacs' vim emulation): "I've only ever used emacs in vim mode (evil-mode). Its vim emulation is the best I've seen anywhere."

Some mentioned the daemon/client workflow - emacs --daemon with emacsclient - that makes opening files nearly instant by keeping a running Emacs instance.

On terminal emulators:

Several commenters recommended Ghostel, a newer terminal emulator backed by libghostty-vt that handles modern TUI applications better than vterm. One co-maintainer noted it is particularly good with Claude Code's interface animations.

On the common objections:

The thread addressed the two most common complaints about Emacs:

1. Steep learning curve - acknowledged but viewed as a worthwhile investment
2. Wrist pain from key combinations - solutions include remapping Caps Lock to Control, using the meat of your hand to hit Control rather than your pinkie, or using vim emulation via evil-mode

Other Notable Improvements

Speedbar: Now docks to side windows instead of spawning separate floating frames.

Xref buffers: Support inline editing with xref-edit-mode, eliminating the need for grep workarounds when making bulk changes across files.

Version control: vc-dir-auto-hide-up-to-date automatically hides up-to-date files during directory refreshes.

Quality-of-life:

• kill-region-dwim makes C-w kill words when no region is active
• view-lossage-auto-refresh provides live keystroke visualization for teaching
• ielm-history-file-name persists REPL history across sessions

Modus Themes: Emacs 31 ships with eight accessibility-focused color schemes, including deuteranopia and tritanopia variants for color-blind users.

Should You Try It?

If you are already an Emacs user, the tree-sitter improvements alone might be worth running the development branch. The reduced configuration burden for syntax highlighting across languages addresses one of Emacs' historical pain points.

If you have been Emacs-curious but put off by the setup complexity, Emacs 31 moves in the right direction. More features work out of the box, and the completion system improvements make vanilla Emacs feel more modern without requiring a framework like Doom or Spacemacs.

The continued development also signals something about the editor's future. While much of the developer tools conversation has shifted to AI coding assistants, there is clearly still a dedicated community working on and using Emacs - and the project is incorporating features (tree-sitter, better completions, working terminals) that keep it relevant for modern development workflows.

Sources

• Original article: Emacs 31 is around the corner
• Hacker News discussion
• Ghostel terminal emulator
• GNU Emacs development branch