Setup LSPService So Codeface Can Use LSP Servers

July 26, 2022 • Sebastian Fichtner

LSPService is a free open source webservice that can provide Codeface finer granularity and information about actual architecture:

For example, it allows Codeface to show the symbols (like classes and functions) and dependencies in your code base.

Download and Run

Simply download LSPService and run it locally on your machine. During a codebase import, Codeface will automatically detect LSPService and talk to it.

Make sure to always use the latest version of LSPService. You can check here on GitHub when the binaries have last been updated.

On you first attempt to launch LSPService, you'll probably need to confirm that intention via the security settings:

LSPService will run in terminal, and as long as it's running there, the service is available. Check http://localhost:8080.

Add Language Support

Generally, you must provide locations of LSP servers for the languages you care about: LSPService creates an LSPServiceConfig.json file on launch if the file doesn't exist yet. If the file exists, LSPService loads server configurations from the file. The JSON structure is quite self-explanatory. Here's an example with one entry to support Swift:

{
    "swift" : {
        "path" : "/usr/bin/xcrun",
        "arguments" : [
            "sourcekit-lsp"
        ],
        "environment" : {
            "SOURCEKIT_LOGGING" : "0"
        }
    }
}
                

Just add language server entries to the file and then restart LSPService. Arguments and environment may of course remain empty, depending on the LSP server.

It's important to note that every language eco system (including its language server implementation) is different. Setting up and using an LSP server unfortunately sometimes still requires quite intricate knowledge of the respective eco system.

Generally, we can say this:

• It's often necessary to build a project (or ensure it runs) before analyzing it, because language servers typically rely on build products or other intermediate results of the build process. Building generally ensures that all the language's infrastructure is in place for the particular project.
• The server needs to support requests for document symbols and symbol references.
• Some servers require specific arguments or environment variables.
• Some servers deviate in subtle but fatal ways from the LSP standard. If you let us know of these quirks, we can adapt Codeface to them.

Tips on supporting specific languages are being gathered over here in the documentation.

In the future, Codecace/LSPService will help more with installing and locating LSP servers for common languages. Learn more (or even contribute) on GitHub.