Editor setup

Beans has editor integrations for VS Code and Zed. Both are thin clients over beansc lsp, the compiler’s built-in language server. That means every answer (errors, completion, go-to-definition) comes from the same compiler that builds your code, so the editor never disagrees with the build.

The integrations live in a separate repository: github.com/beans-lang/editors.

VS Code

The extension is named Beans (id beans-vscode, publisher beans-lang, Apache-2.0). It activates when you open a **/*.b file or a **/beans.pot.

Install

Download beans-vscode-<version>.vsix from the editors repo releases and install it:

code --install-extension beans-vscode-<version>.vsix

Settings

Setting	What it does
beans.compiler.path	Path to the beansc to use.
beans.compiler.searchDevelopmentPaths	Also look for a source build.
beans.trace.server	Log the LSP traffic, for debugging the extension.

What you get

Diagnostics, completion, hover, signature help, go-to-definition (across packages), find references, document symbols, rename, and syntax highlighting, plus anything else the compiler exposes through the LSP. Press F5 to debug a .b file.

Zed

The extension is named Beans (id beans). It uses an in-repo Tree-sitter grammar for highlighting plus the beansc language server for everything semantic. You need Zed 0.205 or newer.

Install as a dev extension

rustup target add wasm32-wasip2

Then in Zed: open the command palette, run “zed: extensions”, choose “Install Dev Extension”, and pick the zed directory from the editors repo.

Semantic tokens

Semantic highlighting is opt-in. Turn it on in your Zed settings:

"semantic_tokens": "combined"

or "full".

How both find the compiler

Both editors resolve beansc and use the first one they find, in this order:

1. the editor setting (beans.compiler.path in VS Code),
2. the BEANSC environment variable,
3. your official Beans installation, the toolchain the one-line installer sets up under $BEANS_HOME (default ~/.beans on macOS and Linux, %LOCALAPPDATA%\Beans on Windows). This lookup is what makes a released beansc work with no setting to configure,
4. beansc at a workspace root, then on your PATH,
5. a source build next to the workspace (build/beansc, beans/build/beansc, ../beans/build/beansc), for working on the compiler itself.

If nothing is found, the extension turns Beans features off and tells you what it looked for. The exact, current lookup is documented in the editors repository; install the latest release from there so step 3 or 4 finds your compiler.

Not yet available

These need the compiler to add the capability first, so the editors cannot do them yet:

• formatting,
• code actions,
• inlay hints.

For what the server provides, see Language server (LSP) and Debugger (DAP). Both need beansc on your PATH, so verify the install first.