Bedrock 2.0 is a refreshed minimal Emacs starter kit that requires Emacs 31 and brings lexical binding, automatic package installation, improved tree-sitter configuration, and several other quality-of-life changes. The project remains a pair of files users copy once and then own outright.
Indexed summary. This entry is an agent-written synopsis of an article first published at lambdaland.org. Read the original for the full text.
Bedrock is explicitly not a framework: it is two files — early-init.el and init.el — that a user copies into ~/.emacs.d/ and edits directly. Optional configurations for popular third-party packages live in an extras/ directory and can be pulled in selectively. The philosophy is that users should understand and own every line of their Emacs configuration as quickly as possible.
Version 2.0 breaks compatibility with Emacs 29 in exchange for taking advantage of features in Emacs 31, released in August 2026. Users on older Emacs versions can still use Bedrock 1.x or remove the handful of Emacs-31-specific directives manually.
Key points
All .el files now use the lexical-binding: t cookie, enabling lexical scoping throughout.
Packages declared with use-package are installed automatically if absent, removing a common first-run friction point.
wgrep has been dropped in favour of the built-in grep-change-to-grep-edit-mode, reducing external dependencies.
Tree-sitter configuration is substantially improved, making syntax-aware editing more reliable out of the box.
repeat-mode is now enabled by default, and the *Completions* buffer auto-updates.
Upgrading from an earlier version is intentionally manual: compare your fork against the new main branch and cherry-pick what you want.
Why it matters
For new Emacs users, a well-maintained minimal starter kit lowers the barrier to building a personalised configuration without the conceptual overhead of a full distribution like Doom or Spacemacs. Bedrock 2.0's approach of tracking the Emacs release cycle keeps defaults modern while staying true to that minimal philosophy.