dev

Editor tooling

Tools for writing MinML in an editor. They are built from the repository root, because they combine pieces from dev/ and go.

Tool	Contents
vscode/minml-preview	VS Code extension: live HTML preview and language support for MinML
neovim	Neovim plugin: file detection, language server, comment and bracket syntax
emacs	Emacs major mode minml-mode: file detection, language server through eglot, comments and brackets
sublime	Sublime Text package LSP-minml: syntax, comments, and the language server through the LSP package
zed	Zed extension: grammar, highlighting, brackets, indentation, and the language server
helix	Helix configuration: grammar, highlighting, indentation, and the language server
tree-sitter	Tree-sitter grammar, equivalent to the Go parser, for Zed and Helix
jetbrains	JetBrains IDE plugin on LSP4IJ: file type, language server, comments, and bracket matching

Build targets

Run these from the repository root.

Command	Produces
make vscode-live-preview	The extension, installed into your local VS Code. Depends on build-wasm and build-lsp, so it also rebuilds the Go parser and language server.
make neovim-plugin	The language server, copied into neovim/bin/.
make emacs-plugin	The language server, copied into emacs/bin/.
make sublime-plugin	The language server, copied into sublime/bin/.
make gen-parser	The tree-sitter parser in tree-sitter/src/, from tree-sitter/grammar.js
make test-grammar	The tree-sitter corpus tests and the comparison with the Go parser
make zed-extension	out/zed-extension, the Zed extension with the grammar from this repository's current commit
make jetbrains-plugin	jetbrains/build/distributions/minml-jetbrains-*.zip, with the language server inside. Needs JDK 21 in JAVA_HOME; every JetBrains IDE bundles one, for example /Applications/GoLand.app/Contents/jbr/Contents/Home.

make vscode-live-preview needs Node and npm, and it removes any stale minml-preview installation before copying the new one in.

In every editor, highlighting, diagnostics, hover, and completion come from the minml-lsp language server, which parses with the converter's own parser. The server sends no tokens for brackets; each editor colors them itself.

Each plugin looks for the server in the same order: MINML_LSP_PATH, then the binary bundled with the plugin, then minml-lsp on PATH. The VS Code extension's minml.lspPath setting and Emacs's minml-lsp-path option come before all three.

Neovim

Needs Neovim 0.11 or later. Run make neovim-plugin, then add dev/neovim to the runtime path, for example with lazy.nvim:

{ dir = "/path/to/matchertext/dev/neovim" }

.minml files are MinML. A .m file is MinML when its first non-blank line starts with an element or a MinML construct; otherwise Neovim's own .m detection (Objective-C, MATLAB, and others) decides. Completion opens only on request, as in VS Code.

Emacs

Needs Emacs 29 or later; semantic highlighting needs Emacs 31, whose eglot has eglot-semantic-tokens-mode. Run make emacs-plugin, then:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/matchertext/dev/emacs")
(require 'minml-mode)

minml-mode starts eglot itself; set minml-start-eglot to nil to start it by hand. .m files are detected as in Neovim.

Sublime Text

Needs the LSP package from Package Control. Run make sublime-plugin, then link the package into Sublime's Packages directory under the name LSP-minml, for example on macOS:

ln -s "$PWD/dev/sublime" ~/Library/"Application Support/Sublime Text/Packages/LSP-minml"

Install it as a directory, not a .sublime-package archive, so the bundled server can run. The LSP package turns semantic highlighting off by default; set "semantic_highlighting": true in Preferences | Package Settings | LSP | Settings to get the server's colors. Without it, only brackets are colored. The package claims .minml only; for .m files use View | Syntax | Open all with current extension as | MinML.

Helix

Helix highlights with tree-sitter only; it does not use the server's semantic tokens. Add the entries in helix/languages.toml to ~/.config/helix/languages.toml, with the path to this repository, then:

mkdir -p ~/.config/helix/runtime/queries
ln -s "$PWD/dev/tree-sitter/queries" ~/.config/helix/runtime/queries/minml
hx --grammar build

Put minml-lsp on PATH (make build-lsp builds it), or set its full path as the command of language-server.minml-lsp. Helix has no content check for .m files, so only .minml is MinML.

Helix asks for completions whenever typing pauses inside a word, and it can turn that off only for all languages at once, with auto-completion = false under [editor] in config.toml. Completion stays available on request.

Zed

Zed highlights with the tree-sitter grammar; its semantic-token support is off by default. A Zed extension loads its grammar from a git commit, so commit the grammar first, then run make zed-extension and install out/zed-extension with zed: install dev extension. Zed needs Rust from rustup to build the extension. dev/zed/extension.toml points at the main branch on GitHub; pin its rev to a commit before publishing the extension.

The extension finds the server through the lsp.minml-lsp.binary.path setting, then MINML_LSP_PATH, then minml-lsp on PATH. Zed extensions cannot bundle a native binary.

Zed asks for completions while you type, and an extension cannot change that. To open completion only on request, as in VS Code, add to Zed's settings.json:

"languages": { "MinML": { "show_completions_on_input": false } }

editor: toggle comments (Cmd+/) handles line comments only; MinML comments are block comments, so use editor: toggle block comments. Zed ends a comment at the first ] after its -[, not at the ] that balances it, so it cannot uncomment text that contains ]: with a selection it adds a second comment, and with the cursor before an inner ] it removes that ]. Undo, and delete the -[ and ] by hand.

JetBrains IDEs

Run make jetbrains-plugin, then install the zip with Settings | Plugins | Install Plugin from Disk. The plugin needs LSP4IJ from the Marketplace.

The plugin registers .minml only, because .m belongs to Objective-C in CLion and other IDEs. To open .m files as MinML, add *.m to the MinML file type in Settings | Editor | File Types. Completion opens automatically only after {, as in VS Code, and otherwise on request.