Understanding Language Server Protocol - autocomplete, formatting - Adrian Hesketh

Learn about the Language Server Protocol (LSP), a standard for implementing language servers and clients, featuring auto-completion, formatting, and diagnostics, with a focus on its structure, functionality, and usage.

Key takeaways

The language server protocol (LSP) is a standard for implementing language servers and clients, which allows for features like auto-completion, formatting, and diagnostics.
The protocol uses JSON RPC for communication and allows for both requests and notifications.
The LSP has three major parts: initialization, notification, and method handling.
Initialization involves sending an initialized notification to the language server.
Notification involves sending notifications to the language server, such as when the user types or makes changes to the document.
Method handling involves sending requests to the language server for specific actions, such as auto-completion or formatting.
The LSP uses a multiplexer to handle incoming and outgoing messages, which can be implemented in Go using the net.rpc package.
The protocol defines several methods and notifications, including textDocument/completion, textDocument/formatting, and textDocument/diagnostics.
The language server should be able to handle partial updates and return diagnostic results.
The LSP uses a structured error for errors, which allows for easier error handling.
The protocol also defines a way to handle concurrency and synchronization between the language server and the client.
The LSP is extensible and allows for custom extensions and plugins.
The protocol is widely used in many editors and IDEs, including Visual Studio Code, Neovim, and Jetbrains.

Understanding Language Server Protocol - autocomplete, formatting - Adrian Hesketh

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