[lucidstack]

Apologies if this is incorrect (on my phone atm) but I've been using <space> as leader for two years now, and have never ever noticed lag in insert mode.

Perhaps it's a setting you have enabled/disabled, or unrelated to vim?

[Sean1708]

Presumably you don't have any <leader> key mappings that are active in insert mode?

[grive]

This lag is introduced by vim, to wait for the next keys and see if you are actually inserting them or using mapped key sequence.

It is configurable in vim, but then either you have a lag and you are able to use your key sequence, or you don't and <leader> sequences cannot be used.

So maybe I have something configured that sets it wrong, but I do not see how to reconcile both things.

[robenkleene]

Unless you’re deliberately enabling certain key mappings in insert mode, then yes you’ve configured something wrong. And if you have deliberately enabled these bindings, you’re probably misunderstanding Vim.

The whole point of Vim’s normal mode is to free up “modifier-free” key mappings for commands rather than inserting characters. So by extension, using “modifier-free” key mappings for commands in insert mode is a Vim anti-pattern (if you want custom mapping’s in insert mode, use mappings for them with modifier keys).

Regarding your issue, I suspect your defining your bindings with the `map` keyword when you should be using `nmap` (or better yet `nnoremap‘).