What is LSP?

The Language Server protocol is used between a tool (the client) and a language smartness provider (the server) to integrate features like auto complete, go to definition, find all references and alike into the tool

– official Language Server Protocol specification

The LSP was created by Microsoft to define a common language for programming language analyzers to speak. Today, several companies have come together to support its growth, including Codenvy, Red Hat, and Sourcegraph, and the protocol is becoming supported by a rapidly growing list of editor and language communities. See below for details on and links to current client and server implementations.

Why LSP?

LSP creates the opportunity to reduce the m-times-n complexity problem of providing a high level of support for any programming language in any editor, IDE, or client endpoint to a simpler m-plus-n problem.

For example, instead of the traditional practice of building a Python plugin for VSCode, a Python plugin for Sublime Text, a Python plugin for Vim, a Python plugin for Sourcegraph, and so on, for every language, LSP allows language communities to concentrate their efforts on a single, high performing language server that can provide code completion, hover tooltips, jump-to-definition, find-references, and more, while editor and client communities can concentrate on building a single, high performing, intuitive and idiomatic extension that can communicate with any language server to instantly provide deep language support.

The problem : "The Matrix" Go Java TypeScript ... Emacs Vim VSCode ... The solution : lang servers and clients Go Java TypeScript ... Emacs Vim VSCode ...

Current implementations

LSP is growing - fast. See tables below for the latest on adoption.

Microsoft currently maintains a parallel list of language server implementations in the core LSP repository. This site is designed to operate alongside Microsoft's list by providing more information about the capabilities of language servers and LSP clients, informing users which features to expect when they download and install a new language server and/or client, and communicating where to open-source contributors where help is needed.

Qualifications:

To be included on this list, language servers and clients must:

Be fully open source Be editor-agnostic for language servers or language-agnostic for clients Implement at least one of the key methods listed below

Key

Implemented WIP Not implemented Not applicable

Language servers

Notes:

Language servers that support this feature are able to resolve / install a project's 3rd-party dependencies without the need for a user to manually intervene. Language servers that support this feature don't execute arbitrary code (some language servers do this when running build scripts, analyzing the project, etc.). Language servers that support this feature are able to render tree views. See this link for more information. Language servers that support this feature are able to provide text to be displayed as "non-editable" text in the text editor. See this link for more information.

LSP clients

Contact us

Langserver.org is maintained by Sourcegraph.

To suggest additions or to update the status of a project, please file issues or submit PRs on this project at github.com/langserver/langserver.github.io

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