Editor Setup

LSP Features

The built-in LSP server (dippin lsp) provides rich editing features for any LSP-compatible editor. It communicates over stdio using JSON-RPC 2.0.

Diagnostics are the most valuable feature — you get real-time feedback as you type, identical to running dippin lint on every save.

VS Code

Extension Install

The VS Code extension provides syntax highlighting independently of the LSP server. For the best experience, install both.

# Symlink into VS Code extensions directory
ln -s "$(pwd)/editors/vscode" ~/.vscode/extensions/dippin-lang

# Or copy
cp -r editors/vscode ~/.vscode/extensions/dippin-lang

# Restart VS Code — .dip files should show "Dippin" as the language mode

LSP Configuration

Add to your settings.json to connect the LSP server:

{
  "dippin.lsp.enabled": true,
  "dippin.lsp.path": "dippin"
}

Or use a generic LSP client extension with this configuration:

{
  "languageServerExample.trace.server": "verbose",
  "languageserver": {
    "dippin": {
      "command": "dippin",
      "args": ["lsp"],
      "filetypes": ["dippin"],
      "rootPatterns": [".git"]
    }
  }
}

Highlighted Elements

Neovim

With nvim-lspconfig

Add to your Neovim config:

local lspconfig = require('lspconfig')
local configs = require('lspconfig.configs')

if not configs.dippin then
  configs.dippin = {
    default_config = {
      cmd = { 'dippin', 'lsp' },
      filetypes = { 'dippin' },
      root_dir = lspconfig.util.root_pattern('.git'),
      settings = {},
    },
  }
end

lspconfig.dippin.setup({})

Filetype Registration

Register the .dip extension:

vim.filetype.add({
  extension = {
    dip = 'dippin',
  },
})

Tree-sitter

For full syntax highlighting with tree-sitter, install the tree-sitter-dippin grammar. This provides more accurate highlighting than regex-based syntax files, including proper scoping of multiline blocks and condition expressions.

Basic Syntax Highlighting

For keyword highlighting without tree-sitter, create ~/.config/nvim/syntax/dippin.vim:

syn keyword dippinKeyword workflow agent human tool parallel fan_in subgraph edges defaults
syn keyword dippinCondKeyword when and or not
syn keyword dippinBoolean true false
syn match dippinField /^\s*\w\+:/
syn match dippinArrow /->/
syn match dippinArrow /<-/
syn match dippinComment /#.*/
syn match dippinVariable /\${[^}]*}/
syn region dippinString start=/"/ end=/"/

hi link dippinKeyword Keyword
hi link dippinCondKeyword Conditional
hi link dippinBoolean Boolean
hi link dippinField Tag
hi link dippinArrow Operator
hi link dippinComment Comment
hi link dippinVariable Identifier
hi link dippinString String

Other Editors

Any editor with LSP support can use dippin lsp. The common configuration pattern:

Editors known to work with generic LSP clients:

• Sublime Text — via LSP package
• Emacs — via lsp-mode or eglot
• Helix — native LSP support
• Zed — native LSP support

Graphviz Integration

For visual workflow diagrams, pipe export-dot output to Graphviz:

# PNG output
dippin export-dot pipeline.dip | dot -Tpng -o pipeline.png

# SVG for web
dippin export-dot pipeline.dip | dot -Tsvg -o pipeline.svg

# Left-to-right layout (better for wide pipelines)
dippin export-dot --rankdir=LR pipeline.dip | dot -Tpng -o pipeline.png

# Include prompt text in nodes
dippin export-dot --prompts pipeline.dip | dot -Tpng -o pipeline.png

Install Graphviz: brew install graphviz (macOS), apt install graphviz (Debian/Ubuntu), or graphviz.org.