Zig Language Server, or zls, is a language server for Zig. The Zig wiki states that "The Zig community is decentralized" and "There is no concept of 'official' or 'unofficial'", so instead of calling zls unofficial, and I'm going to call it a cool option, one of many.

Table Of Contents

• Installation
  • Build Options
  • Configuration Options
• Usage
  • VSCode
  • Sublime Text 3
  • Kate
  • Neovim/Vim8
  • Emacs
• Related Projects
• License

Installation

Installing zls is pretty simple;

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/zigtools/zls
cd zls
zig build

# To configure ZLS:
zig build config

Build Options

Option	Type	Default Value	What it Does
-Ddata_version	string (master or 0.6.0)	0.6.0	The data file version. This selects the files in the src/data folder that correspond to the Zig version being served.

Then, you can use the zls executable in an editor of your choice that has a Zig language server client!

Note: zls itself must be built using the master branch of zig currently due to a bug in std.json which was fixed after 0.6.0 was released, as well as various parser changes that have happened since.

Configuration Options

You can configure zls by providing a zls.json file.
zls will look for a zls.json configuration file in multiple locations with the following priority:

• In the folders open in your workspace (this applies for files in those folders)
• In the local configuration folder of your OS (as provided by known-folders)
• In the same directory as the executable

The following options are currently available.

Option	Type	Default value	What it Does
enable_snippets	bool	false	Enables snippet completion, set to false for compatibility with language clients that do not support snippets (such as ale).
zig_lib_path	?[]const u8	null	zig library path, e.g. /path/to/zig/lib/zig, used to analyze std library imports.
zig_exe_path	?[]const u8	null	zig executable path, e.g. /path/to/zig/zig, used to run the custom build runner. If null, zig is looked up in PATH. Will be used to infer the zig standard library path if none is provided.
warn_style	bool	false	Enables warnings for style guideline mismatches
build_runner_path	?[]const u8	null	Path to the build_runner.zig file provided by zls. This option must be present in one of the global configuration files to have any effect. null is equivalent to ${executable_directory}/build_runner.zig

Usage

zls will supercharge your Zig programming experience with autocomplete, function documentation, and more! Follow the instructions for your specific editor below:

VSCode

Install the zls-vscode extension from here.

Sublime Text 3

• Install the LSP package from here or via Package Control.
• Add this snippet to LSP's user settings:

{
    "clients": {
        "zig":{
            "command": ["zls"],
            "enabled": true,
            "languageId": "zig",
            "scopes": ["source.zig"],
            "syntaxes": ["Packages/Zig Language/Syntaxes/Zig.tmLanguage"]
        }
    }
}

Kate

• Enable LSP client plugin in Kate settings.
• Add this snippet to LSP client's user settings (e.g. /$HOME/.config/kate/lspclient) (or paste it in LSP client's GUI settings)

{
    "servers": {
        "zig": {
            "command": ["zls"],
            "url": "https://github.com/zigtools/zls",
            "highlightingModeRegex": "^Zig$"
        }
    }
}

Neovim/Vim8

• Install the CoC engine from here.
• Issue :CocConfig from within your Vim editor, and the following snippet:

{
   "languageserver": {
       "zls" : {
           "command": "command_or_path_to_zls",
           "filetypes": ["zig"]
       }
   }
}

Emacs

• Install lsp-mode from melpa
• zig mode is also useful

(require 'lsp)
(add-to-list 'lsp-language-id-configuration '(zig-mode . "zig"))
(lsp-register-client
  (make-lsp-client
    :new-connection (lsp-stdio-connection "<path to zls>")
    :major-modes '(zig-mode)
    :server-id 'zls))

Related Projects

• sublime-zig-language by @prime31
  • Supports basic language features
  • Uses data provided by src/data to perform builtin autocompletion
• zig-lsp by @xackus
  • Inspiration for zls
• known-folders by @ziglibs
  • Provides API to access known folders on Linux, Windows and Mac OS

License

MIT