Atom Language Server Protocol Client
Provide integration support for adding Language Server Protocol servers to Atom.
Background
Language Server Protocol (LSP) is a JSON-RPC based mechanism whereby a client (IDE) may connect to an out-of-process server that can provide rich analysis, refactoring and interactive features for a given programming language.
Implementation
This npm package can be used by Atom package authors wanting to integrate LSP-compatible language servers with Atom. It provides:
Conversion routines between Atom and LSP types
A FlowTyped wrapper around JSON-RPC for v3 of the LSP protocol
All necessary FlowTyped input and return structures for LSP, notifications etc.
A number of adapters to translate communication between Atom/Atom-IDE and the LSP's capabilities
Automatic wiring up of adapters based on the negotiated capabilities of the language server
Helper functions for downloading additional non-npm dependencies
Capabilities
The language server protocol consists of a number of capabilities. Some of these already have a counterpoint we can connect up to today while others do not. The following table shows each capability in v2 and how it is exposed via Atom;
Capability
Atom interface
window/showMessage
Notifications package
window/showMessageRequest
Notifications package
window/logMessage
Atom-IDE console
telemetry/event
Ignored
workspace/didChangeWatchedFiles
Atom file watch API
textDocument/publishDiagnostics
Linter v2 push/indie
textDocument/completion
AutoComplete+
completionItem/resolve
AutoComplete+ (Atom 1.24+)
textDocument/hover
Atom-IDE data tips
textDocument/signatureHelp
Atom-IDE signature help
textDocument/definition
Atom-IDE definitions
textDocument/findReferences
Atom-IDE findReferences
textDocument/documentHighlight
Atom-IDE code highlights
textDocument/documentSymbol
Atom-IDE outline view
workspace/symbol
TBD
textDocument/codeAction
Atom-IDE code actions
textDocument/codeLens
TBD
textDocument/formatting
Format File command
textDocument/rangeFormatting
Format Selection command
textDocument/onTypeFormatting
Atom-IDE on type formatting
textDocument/onSaveFormatting
Atom-IDE on save formatting
textDocument/rename
TBD
textDocument/didChange
Send on save
textDocument/didOpen
Send on open
textDocument/didSave
Send after save
textDocument/willSave
Send before save
textDocument/didClose
Send on close
Developing packages
The underlying JSON-RPC communication is handled by the vscode-jsonrpc npm module.
Minimal example
A minimal implementation can be illustrated by the Omnisharp package here which has only npm-managed dependencies. You simply provide the scope name, language name and server name as well as start your process and AutoLanguageClient takes care of interrogating your language server capabilities and wiring up the appropriate services within Atom to expose them.
const {AutoLanguageClient} = require('atom-languageclient')
class CSharpLanguageClient extends AutoLanguageClient {
getGrammarScopes () { return [ 'source.cs' ] }
getLanguageName () { return 'C#' }
getServerName () { return 'OmniSharp' }
startServerProcess () {
return super.spawnChildNode([ require.resolve('omnisharp-client/languageserver/server') ])
}
}
module.exports = new CSharpLanguageClient()
You can get this code packaged up with the necessary package.json etc. from the ide-csharp provides C# support via Omnisharp (node-omnisharp) repo.
Note that you will also need to add various entries to the providedServices and consumedServices section of your package.json (for now). You can obtain these entries here.
Using other connection types
The default connection type is stdio however both ipc and sockets are also available.
IPC
To use ipc simply return ipc from getConnectionType(), e.g.
class ExampleLanguageClient extends AutoLanguageClient {
getGrammarScopes () { return [ 'source.js', 'javascript' ] }
getLanguageName () { return 'JavaScript' }
getServerName () { return 'JavaScript Language Server' }
getConnectionType() { return 'ipc' }
startServerProcess () {
const startServer = require.resolve('@example/js-language-server')
return super.spawnChildNode([startServer, '--node-ipc'], {
stdio: [null, null, null, 'ipc']
})
}
}
Sockets
Sockets are a little more complex because you need to allocate a free socket. The ide-php package contains an example of this.
Debugging
Atom-LanguageClient can log all sent and received messages nicely formatted to the Developer Tools Console within Atom. To do so simply enable it with atom.config.set('core.debugLSP', true), e.g.
Tips
Some more elaborate scenarios can be found in the ide-java package which includes:
Downloading and unpacking non-npm dependencies (in this case a .tar.gz containing JAR files)
Platform-specific start-up configuration
Wiring up custom extensions to the protocol (language/status to Atom Status-Bar, language/actionableNotification to Atom Notifications)
Available packages
Right now we have the following experimental Atom LSP packages in development. They are mostly usable but are missing some features that either the LSP server doesn't support or expose functionality that is as yet unmapped to Atom (TODO and TBD in the capabilities table above).
Official packages
Community packages
Our full list of Atom IDE packages includes the community packages.
Other language servers
Additional LSP servers that might be of interest to be packaged with this for Atom can be found at LangServer.org
Contributing
Running from source
If you want to run from source you will need to perform the following steps (you will need node and npm intalled):
Check out the source
From the source folder type npm link to build and link
From the folder where your package lives type npm link atom-languageclient
If you want to switch back to the production version of atom-languageclient type npm unlink atom-languageclient from the folder where your package lives.
Before sending a PR
We have various unit tests and some linter rules - you can run both of these locally using npm test to ensure your CI will get a clean build.
Guidance
Always feel free to help out! Whether it's filing bugs and feature requests or working on some of the open issues, Atom's contributing guide will help get you started while the guide for contributing to packages has some extra information.
License
MIT License. See the license for more details.