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.

Feature	Description
Diagnostics	Parse errors and lint warnings published on every change (DIP001-DIP126)
Hover	Tooltip showing node kind, model, provider, prompt preview, and field summary
Go-to-definition	Jump from a node reference in an edge to the node's declaration
Autocomplete	Node IDs in edges, field names within node blocks, keywords
Document symbols	Outline view showing all nodes and the edges section

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

Element	Example	Color Category
Keywords	workflow, agent, tool, human, edges	keyword
Node names	agent MyNode	function
Field keys	model:, prompt:, timeout:	tag
Strings	"quoted value"	string
Comments	# comment	comment
Arrows	->, <-	operator
Conditions	when, and, or, not	keyword
Variables	ctx.outcome, graph.goal	variable
Interpolation	${ctx.var}	variable
Booleans	true, false	constant
Numbers	3, 60s, 5m	number

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:

Setting	Value
Command	dippin lsp
Transport	stdio
File types	.dip

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.