IDE Extensions

Writ ships with extensions for three editors: VS Code, Neovim/Vim, and JetBrains IDEs. All extensions live under extensions/ in the repository.

VS Code

The official VS Code extension provides full language support for .writ files.

Installation

Install from the VS Code Marketplace by searching for Writ, or install the .vsix directly:

code --install-extension writ-lang-0.1.0.vsix

The .vsix file is available on the GitHub releases page.

Features

Syntax highlighting — full TextMate grammar coverage for all language constructs.

Language server (LSP) — powered by writ-lsp via vscode-languageclient.

Diagnostics (type errors, undefined names) as you type
Completions for fields, methods, and stdlib functions
Hover documentation
Go to definition

Debugging — breakpoints, step through, inspect variables via the Debug Adapter Protocol. Add a launch configuration to .vscode/launch.json:

{
  "type": "writ",
  "request": "launch",
  "name": "Debug Writ Script",
  "program": "${file}",
  "host": "127.0.0.1",
  "port": 7778
}

Hot reload — saving a .writ file automatically pushes updated bytecode to a running VM. Requires your host to listen for reload requests (see the Embedding guide).

Settings

Setting	Default	Description
`writ.lspPath`	`"writ-lsp"`	Path to the language server binary. Leave as default to use the bundled binary.
`writ.hotReload.enabled`	`true`	Enable hot reload on save.
`writ.hotReload.mechanism`	`"socket"`	How reload requests are sent: `socket`, `pipe`, or `file`.
`writ.hotReload.address`	`"127.0.0.1:7777"`	Address for socket-based hot reload.

Neovim / Vim

The vim-writ plugin provides syntax highlighting, filetype detection, LSP integration, and hot reload for Neovim. Traditional Vim gets syntax highlighting and filetype settings.

Installation

Use your preferred plugin manager. For example, with lazy.nvim:

{
  "forge18/writ",
  config = function()
    require("writ").setup()
  end,
}

Or clone extensions/vim-writ into your Vim runtimepath manually.

Features

Syntax highlighting — Vim syntax file covering keywords, types, strings (with interpolation), comments, operators, and number literals.

Filetype detection — .writ files are automatically recognized.

Filetype settings — commentstring, tabstop/shiftwidth (4 spaces), and suffixesadd configured out of the box.

Language server (LSP) (Neovim only) — auto-starts writ-lsp via vim.lsp.start() when a .writ file is opened. No lspconfig dependency required.

Hot reload (Neovim only) — on save, sends a reload payload to a running host over TCP socket or file sentinel, matching the VS Code behavior.

Configuration

Pass options to require("writ").setup():

require("writ").setup({
  lsp_cmd = "writ-lsp",        -- path to the language server binary
  hot_reload = {
    enabled = true,             -- enable hot reload on save
    mechanism = "socket",       -- "socket" or "file"
    address = "127.0.0.1:7777", -- host:port for socket, or file path for file
  },
})

JetBrains IDEs

The jetbrains-writ plugin provides Writ support for IntelliJ IDEA, CLion, and other JetBrains IDEs (2025.3+).

Installation

Build the plugin from source:

cd extensions/jetbrains-writ
./gradlew buildPlugin

Then install the resulting ZIP from Settings → Plugins → Install Plugin from Disk.

Features

Syntax highlighting — powered by the same TextMate grammar used by the VS Code extension.

LSP integration — diagnostics, completions, hover, go-to-definition, and rename via writ-lsp (must be on $PATH).

Comment toggling — Cmd+/ (macOS) or Ctrl+/ (Linux/Windows) for line and block comments.

File type recognition — .writ files detected automatically with a dedicated file icon.