Karthik Chikmagalur’s recent “Even More Batteries Included with Emacs” post surveyed built‑in features, while author writes a mirror piece focused on upcoming changes in Emacs 31. He has been compiling the pre‑release branch and integrating every new tweak into his minimalist Emacs Solo config, marking each with an “EMACS‑31” comment for later pruning. The notes reflect what he actually uses daily as of mid‑2026.

Among the upgrades, the tree-sitter overhaul steals the show. Setting `treesit-auto-install-grammar` to t and `treesit-enabled-modes` to t eliminates the manual language‑source list and on‑the‑fly compilation steps that have plagued users for years. Grammars for TypeScript, Rust, YAML and others now ship inside their major modes, letting users drop the boilerplate comments once 31 ships.

The release also drops an experimental markdown-ts-mode, co‑authored by the author and Stéphane Marks. It mirrors Org keybindings, highlights fenced code blocks with the appropriate major mode, and renders inline images, turning Markdown files into rich, readable buffers. Additional tweaks—eldoc at point, eager completion updates, and a quieter Eglot code‑action hint—streamline everyday editing without extra packages.

With these defaults baked into the core, developers can adopt Emacs 31 without sprinkling third‑party extensions. The author’s daily‑driver setup demonstrates that a lean configuration now handles modern language parsing, documentation rendering, and responsive completion out of the box. Users who compile the pre‑release will see the same streamlined experience once the official launch arrives.