[deps] plugin pin health check (Aug 2026) — noice.nvim maintenance stall; pin set otherwise fresh #327

What

Routine sweep of all nvim-pack-lock.json pins not already covered by an open tracking issue, checking each against upstream HEAD via GitHub's commit Atom feeds and git ls-remote. Most pins are unusually fresh (0-6 days behind upstream) — nothing dramatic this cycle, but one new maintenance-risk observation is worth tracking.

Already covered elsewhere — not repeated here

diffview.nvim / quicker.nvim (#273), fff.nvim / blink.cmp v2 (#271), nvim-treesitter archival (#255), gitsigns.nvim v1/v2 breaking changes (#154), nvim-treesitter-textobjects frozen master (#101), plenary.nvim archival (#138), obsidian.nvim v3.x (#78), fff.nvim + vim.pack lazy-loading (#270).

New finding: noice.nvim maintenance stall

Where: nvim-pack-lock.json → noice.nvim (pinned at 7bfd942, currently sitting at the tip of main)

Why it matters: folke/noice.nvim has had zero commits since ~Nov 3, 2025 — about 9.5 months of silence as of this audit — while the upstream repo currently carries 6 open issues and 27 open, unmerged PRs. It's not archived and carries no deprecation banner, but the commit stall plus a growing unreviewed-PR backlog is a maintenance-risk signal worth watching, especially since noice.nvim sits in this config's critical UI path (cmdline/messages, per plugin_config.lua) and depends on nui.nvim (just bumped in #324).

Recommended action: No action needed yet — just keep on the radar. If the stall continues and a Neovim release lands a cmdline/messages-UI breaking change, noice.nvim may not get a timely fix. Worth having a fallback plan (e.g. vim.opt.cmdheight/native messages, or evaluating alternatives) if the stall persists into a future audit cycle.

Secondary, lower-confidence observation

snacks.nvim (pinned at HEAD, 882c996, dated ~May 25 2026) shows a similar but much milder slowdown: very active through a v2.31.0 release cluster in March 2026, then quiet since. ~3 months of reduced cadence is normal for a project of this size and not yet actionable — mentioned for context only.

Trivial pin bumps already opened

Four small, verified non-breaking bumps (async.nvim, mini.nvim, nui.nvim, nvim-lspconfig) were rolled into PR #324 rather than repeated here.