rust/docs/dev/lsp-extensions.md

LSP Extensions

This document describes LSP extensions used by rust-analyzer. It's a best effort document, when in doubt, consult the source (and send a PR with clarification ;-) ). We aim to upstream all non Rust-specific extensions to the protocol, but this is not a top priority. All capabilities are enabled via the experimental field of ClientCapabilities or ServerCapabilities. Requests which we hope to upstream live under experimental/ namespace. Requests, which are likely to always remain specific to rust-analyzer are under rust-analyzer/ namespace.

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UTF-8 offsets

rust-analyzer supports clangd's extension for opting into UTF-8 as the coordinate space for offsets (by default, LSP uses UTF-16 offsets).

https://clangd.llvm.org/extensions.html#utf-8-offsets

Configuration in initializationOptions

Issue: https://github.com/microsoft/language-server-protocol/issues/567

The initializationOptions field of the InitializeParams of the initialization request should contain the "rust-analyzer" section of the configuration.

rust-analyzer normally sends a "workspace/configuration" request with { "items": ["rust-analyzer"] } payload. However, the server can't do this during initialization. At the same time some essential configuration parameters are needed early on, before servicing requests. For this reason, we ask that initializationOptions contains the configuration, as if the server did make a "workspace/configuration" request.

If a language client does not know about rust-analyzer's configuration options it can get sensible defaults by doing any of the following:

• Not sending initializationOptions
• Sending "initializationOptions": null
• Sending "initializationOptions": {}

Snippet TextEdit

Issue: https://github.com/microsoft/language-server-protocol/issues/724

Experimental Client Capability: { "snippetTextEdit": boolean }

If this capability is set, WorkspaceEdits returned from codeAction requests might contain SnippetTextEdits instead of usual TextEdits:

interface SnippetTextEdit extends TextEdit {
    insertTextFormat?: InsertTextFormat;
    annotationId?: ChangeAnnotationIdentifier;
}

export interface TextDocumentEdit {
    textDocument: OptionalVersionedTextDocumentIdentifier;
    edits: (TextEdit | SnippetTextEdit)[];
}

When applying such code action, the editor should insert snippet, with tab stops and placeholder. At the moment, rust-analyzer guarantees that only a single edit will have InsertTextFormat.Snippet.

Example

"Add derive" code action transforms struct S; into #[derive($0)] struct S;

Unresolved Questions

• Where exactly are SnippetTextEdits allowed (only in code actions at the moment)?
• Can snippets span multiple files (so far, no)?

CodeAction Groups

Issue: https://github.com/microsoft/language-server-protocol/issues/994

Experimental Client Capability: { "codeActionGroup": boolean }

If this capability is set, CodeActions returned from the server contain an additional field, group:

interface CodeAction {
    title: string;
    group?: string;
    ...
}

All code-actions with the same group should be grouped under single (extendable) entry in lightbulb menu. The set of actions [ { title: "foo" }, { group: "frobnicate", title: "bar" }, { group: "frobnicate", title: "baz" }] should be rendered as

💡
  +-------------+
  | foo         |
  +-------------+-----+
  | frobnicate >| bar |
  +-------------+-----+
                | baz |
                +-----+

Alternatively, selecting frobnicate could present a user with an additional menu to choose between bar and baz.

Example

fn main() {
    let x: Entry/*cursor here*/ = todo!();
}

Invoking code action at this position will yield two code actions for importing Entry from either collections::HashMap or collection::BTreeMap, grouped under a single "import" group.

Unresolved Questions

• Is a fixed two-level structure enough?
• Should we devise a general way to encode custom interaction protocols for GUI refactorings?

Parent Module

Issue: https://github.com/microsoft/language-server-protocol/issues/1002

Experimental Server Capability: { "parentModule": boolean }

This request is sent from client to server to handle "Goto Parent Module" editor action.

Method: experimental/parentModule

Request: TextDocumentPositionParams

Response: Location | Location[] | LocationLink[] | null

Example

// src/main.rs
mod foo;
// src/foo.rs

/* cursor here*/

experimental/parentModule returns a single Link to the mod foo; declaration.

Unresolved Question

• An alternative would be to use a more general "gotoSuper" request, which would work for super methods, super classes and super modules. This is the approach IntelliJ Rust is taking. However, experience shows that super module (which generally has a feeling of navigation between files) should be separate. If you want super module, but the cursor happens to be inside an overridden function, the behavior with single "gotoSuper" request is surprising.

Join Lines

Issue: https://github.com/microsoft/language-server-protocol/issues/992

Experimental Server Capability: { "joinLines": boolean }

This request is sent from client to server to handle "Join Lines" editor action.

Method: experimental/joinLines

Request:

interface JoinLinesParams {
    textDocument: TextDocumentIdentifier,
    /// Currently active selections/cursor offsets.
    /// This is an array to support multiple cursors.
    ranges: Range[],
}

Response: TextEdit[]

Example

fn main() {
    /*cursor here*/let x = {
        92
    };
}

experimental/joinLines yields (curly braces are automagically removed)

fn main() {
    let x = 92;
}

Unresolved Question

• What is the position of the cursor after joinLines? Currently, this is left to editor's discretion, but it might be useful to specify on the server via snippets. However, it then becomes unclear how it works with multi cursor.

On Enter

Issue: https://github.com/microsoft/language-server-protocol/issues/1001

Experimental Server Capability: { "onEnter": boolean }

This request is sent from client to server to handle the Enter key press.

Method: experimental/onEnter

Request:: TextDocumentPositionParams

Response:

SnippetTextEdit[]

Example

fn main() {
    // Some /*cursor here*/ docs
    let x = 92;
}

experimental/onEnter returns the following snippet

fn main() {
    // Some
    // $0 docs
    let x = 92;
}

The primary goal of onEnter is to handle automatic indentation when opening a new line. This is not yet implemented. The secondary goal is to handle fixing up syntax, like continuing doc strings and comments, and escaping \n in string literals.

As proper cursor positioning is raison-d'etat for onEnter, it uses SnippetTextEdit.

Unresolved Question

• How to deal with synchronicity of the request? One option is to require the client to block until the server returns the response. Another option is to do a OT-style merging of edits from client and server. A third option is to do a record-replay: client applies heuristic on enter immediately, then applies all user's keypresses. When the server is ready with the response, the client rollbacks all the changes and applies the recorded actions on top of the correct response.
• How to deal with multiple carets?
• Should we extend this to arbitrary typed events and not just onEnter?

Structural Search Replace (SSR)

Experimental Server Capability: { "ssr": boolean }

This request is sent from client to server to handle structural search replace -- automated syntax tree based transformation of the source.

Method: experimental/ssr

Request:

interface SsrParams {
    /// Search query.
    /// The specific syntax is specified outside of the protocol.
    query: string,
    /// If true, only check the syntax of the query and don't compute the actual edit.
    parseOnly: bool,
    /// The current text document. This and `position` will be used to determine in what scope
    /// paths in `query` should be resolved.
    textDocument: TextDocumentIdentifier;
    /// Position where SSR was invoked.
    position: Position;
}

Response:

WorkspaceEdit

Example

SSR with query foo($a, $b) ==>> ($a).foo($b) will transform, eg foo(y + 5, z) into (y + 5).foo(z).

Unresolved Question

• Probably needs search without replace mode
• Needs a way to limit the scope to certain files.

Matching Brace

Issue: https://github.com/microsoft/language-server-protocol/issues/999

Experimental Server Capability: { "matchingBrace": boolean }

This request is sent from client to server to handle "Matching Brace" editor action.

Method: experimental/matchingBrace

Request:

interface MatchingBraceParams {
    textDocument: TextDocumentIdentifier,
    /// Position for each cursor
    positions: Position[],
}

Response:

Position[]

Example

fn main() {
    let x: Vec<()>/*cursor here*/ = vec![]
}

experimental/matchingBrace yields the position of <. In many cases, matching braces can be handled by the editor. However, some cases (like disambiguating between generics and comparison operations) need a real parser. Moreover, it would be cool if editors didn't need to implement even basic language parsing

Unresolved Question

• Should we return a nested brace structure, to allow paredit-like actions of jump out of the current brace pair? This is how SelectionRange request works.
• Alternatively, should we perhaps flag certain SelectionRanges as being brace pairs?

Runnables

Issue: https://github.com/microsoft/language-server-protocol/issues/944

Experimental Server Capability: { "runnables": { "kinds": string[] } }

This request is sent from client to server to get the list of things that can be run (tests, binaries, cargo check -p).

Method: experimental/runnables

Request:

interface RunnablesParams {
    textDocument: TextDocumentIdentifier;
    /// If null, compute runnables for the whole file.
    position?: Position;
}

Response: Runnable[]

interface Runnable {
    label: string;
    /// If this Runnable is associated with a specific function/module, etc, the location of this item
    location?: LocationLink;
    /// Running things is necessary technology specific, `kind` needs to be advertised via server capabilities,
    // the type of `args` is specific to `kind`. The actual running is handled by the client.
    kind: string;
    args: any;
}

rust-analyzer supports only one kind, "cargo". The args for "cargo" look like this:

{
    workspaceRoot?: string;
    cargoArgs: string[];
    cargoExtraArgs: string[];
    executableArgs: string[];
    expectTest?: boolean;
    overrideCargo?: string;
}

Open External Documentation

This request is sent from client to server to get a URL to documentation for the symbol under the cursor, if available.

Method experimental/externalDocs

Request:: TextDocumentPositionParams

Response string | null

Analyzer Status

Method: rust-analyzer/analyzerStatus

Request:

interface AnalyzerStatusParams {
    /// If specified, show dependencies of the current file.
    textDocument?: TextDocumentIdentifier;
}

Response: string

Returns internal status message, mostly for debugging purposes.

Reload Workspace

Method: rust-analyzer/reloadWorkspace

Request: null

Response: null

Reloads project information (that is, re-executes cargo metadata).

Server Status

Experimental Client Capability: { "serverStatusNotification": boolean }

Method: experimental/serverStatus

Notification:

interface ServerStatusParams {
    /// `ok` means that the server is completely functional.
    ///
    /// `warning` means that the server is partially functional.
    /// It can answer correctly to most requests, but some results
    /// might be wrong due to, for example, some missing dependencies.
    ///
    /// `error` means that the server is not functional. For example,
    /// there's a fatal build configuration problem. The server might
    /// still give correct answers to simple requests, but most results
    /// will be incomplete or wrong.
    health: "ok" | "warning" | "error",
    /// Is there any pending background work which might change the status?
    /// For example, are dependencies being downloaded?
    quiescent: bool,
    /// Explanatory message to show on hover.
    message?: string,
}

This notification is sent from server to client. The client can use it to display persistent status to the user (in modline). It is similar to the showMessage, but is intended for stares rather than point-in-time events.

Note that this functionality is intended primarily to inform the end user about the state of the server. In particular, it's valid for the client to completely ignore this extension. Clients are discouraged from but are allowed to use the health status to decide if it's worth sending a request to the server.

Syntax Tree

Method: rust-analyzer/syntaxTree

Request:

interface SyntaxTreeParams {
    textDocument: TextDocumentIdentifier,
    range?: Range,
}

Response: string

Returns textual representation of a parse tree for the file/selected region. Primarily for debugging, but very useful for all people working on rust-analyzer itself.

View Hir

Method: rust-analyzer/viewHir

Request: TextDocumentPositionParams

Response: string

Returns a textual representation of the HIR of the function containing the cursor. For debugging or when working on rust-analyzer itself.

View ItemTree

Method: rust-analyzer/viewItemTree

Request:

interface ViewItemTreeParams {
    textDocument: TextDocumentIdentifier,
}

Response: string

Returns a textual representation of the ItemTree of the currently open file, for debugging.

View Crate Graph

Method: rust-analyzer/viewCrateGraph

Request:

interface ViewCrateGraphParams {
    full: boolean,
}

Response: string

Renders rust-analyzer's crate graph as an SVG image.

If full is true, the graph includes non-workspace crates (crates.io dependencies as well as sysroot crates).

Expand Macro

Method: rust-analyzer/expandMacro

Request:

interface ExpandMacroParams {
    textDocument: TextDocumentIdentifier,
    position: Position,
}

Response:

interface ExpandedMacro {
    name: string,
    expansion: string,
}

Expands macro call at a given position.

Inlay Hints

Method: rust-analyzer/inlayHints

This request is sent from client to server to render "inlay hints" -- virtual text inserted into editor to show things like inferred types. Generally, the client should re-query inlay hints after every modification. Note that we plan to move this request to experimental/inlayHints, as it is not really Rust-specific, but the current API is not necessary the right one. Upstream issues: https://github.com/microsoft/language-server-protocol/issues/956 , https://github.com/rust-analyzer/rust-analyzer/issues/2797

Request:

interface InlayHintsParams {
    textDocument: TextDocumentIdentifier,
}

Response: InlayHint[]

interface InlayHint {
    kind: "TypeHint" | "ParameterHint" | "ChainingHint",
    range: Range,
    label: string,
}

Hover Actions

Experimental Client Capability: { "hoverActions": boolean }

If this capability is set, Hover request returned from the server might contain an additional field, actions:

interface Hover {
    ...
    actions?: CommandLinkGroup[];
}

interface CommandLink extends Command {
    /**
     * A tooltip for the command, when represented in the UI.
     */
    tooltip?: string;
}

interface CommandLinkGroup {
    title?: string;
    commands: CommandLink[];
}

Such actions on the client side are appended to a hover bottom as command links:

  +-----------------------------+
  | Hover content               |
  |                             |
  +-----------------------------+
  | _Action1_ | _Action2_       |  <- first group, no TITLE
  +-----------------------------+
  | TITLE _Action1_ | _Action2_ |  <- second group
  +-----------------------------+
  ...

Open Cargo.toml

Issue: https://github.com/rust-analyzer/rust-analyzer/issues/6462

Experimental Server Capability: { "openCargoToml": boolean }

This request is sent from client to server to open the current project's Cargo.toml

Method: experimental/openCargoToml

Request: OpenCargoTomlParams

Response: Location | null

Example

// Cargo.toml
[package]
// src/main.rs

/* cursor here*/

experimental/openCargoToml returns a single Link to the start of the [package] keyword.

Related tests

This request is sent from client to server to get the list of tests for the specified position.

Method: rust-analyzer/relatedTests

Request: TextDocumentPositionParams

Response: TestInfo[]

interface TestInfo {
    runnable: Runnable;
}

Hover Range

Issue: https://github.com/microsoft/language-server-protocol/issues/377

Experimental Server Capability: { "hoverRange": boolean }

This extension allows passing a Range as a position field of HoverParams. The primary use-case is to use the hover request to show the type of the expression currently selected.

interface HoverParams extends WorkDoneProgressParams {
    textDocument: TextDocumentIdentifier;
    position: Range | Position;
}

Whenever the client sends a Range, it is understood as the current selection and any hover included in the range will show the type of the expression if possible.

Example

fn main() {
    let expression = $01 + 2 * 3$0;
}

Triggering a hover inside the selection above will show a result of i32.

Move Item

Issue: https://github.com/rust-analyzer/rust-analyzer/issues/6823

This request is sent from client to server to move item under cursor or selection in some direction.

Method: experimental/moveItem

Request: MoveItemParams

Response: SnippetTextEdit[]

export interface MoveItemParams {
    textDocument: TextDocumentIdentifier,
    range: Range,
    direction: Direction
}

export const enum Direction {
    Up = "Up",
    Down = "Down"
}

Workspace Symbols Filtering

Issue: https://github.com/rust-analyzer/rust-analyzer/pull/7698

Experimental Server Capability: { "workspaceSymbolScopeKindFiltering": boolean }

Extends the existing workspace/symbol request with ability to filter symbols by broad scope and kind of symbol. If this capability is set, workspace/symbol parameter gains two new optional fields:

interface WorkspaceSymbolParams {
    /**
     * Return only the symbols defined in the specified scope.
     */
    searchScope?: WorkspaceSymbolSearchScope;
    /**
     * Return only the symbols of specified kinds.
     */
    searchKind?: WorkspaceSymbolSearchKind;
    ...
}

const enum WorkspaceSymbolSearchScope {
    Workspace = "workspace",
    WorkspaceAndDependencies = "workspaceAndDependencies"
}

const enum WorkspaceSymbolSearchKind {
    OnlyTypes = "onlyTypes",
    AllSymbols = "allSymbols"
}

Client Commands

Experimental Client Capability: { "commands?": ClientCommandOptions }

Certain LSP types originating on the server, notably code lenses, embed commands. Commands can be serviced either by the server or by the client. However, the server doesn't know which commands are available on the client.

This extensions allows the client to communicate this info.

export interface ClientCommandOptions {
	/**
	 * The commands to be executed on the client
	 */
	commands: string[];
}