Tree-sitter Smart Select

AST-aware selection expansion powered by Tree-sitter. Enhances VS Code's built-in Expand/Shrink Selection with precise syntax-tree navigation.

Features

Syntax-aware selection — Selections follow the actual AST structure, not just text patterns
16+ languages supported out of the box
Bracket-inner ranges — Select content inside brackets before selecting the brackets themselves
String-inner ranges — Select string content before selecting the quotes
Incremental parsing — Efficient re-parsing on document edits via Tree-sitter's edit API
Custom parsers — Add support for additional languages via .wasm parser files

The selection will follow the syntax tree structure of your code, expanding to the next meaningful AST node each time.

Setting	Default	Description
`treeSitterSmartSelect.enabledLanguages`	All supported	List of VS Code language IDs to enable smart selection for
`treeSitterSmartSelect.additionalParsers`	`{}`	Map of language IDs to custom `.wasm` parser file paths
`treeSitterSmartSelect.maxFileSize`	`1048576` (1 MB)	Maximum file size for Tree-sitter parsing
`treeSitterSmartSelect.includeAnonymousNodes`	`false`	Include anonymous nodes (punctuation) in the selection chain

You can add support for additional languages by providing a path to a Tree-sitter .wasm parser file:

{
  "treeSitterSmartSelect.additionalParsers": {
    "lua": "/path/to/tree-sitter-lua.wasm"
  }
}

When you trigger Expand Selection, the extension parses your file into a Tree-sitter AST
It finds the smallest AST node at your cursor position
It walks up the tree to the root, building a chain of SelectionRange objects
Extra ranges are inserted for bracket-inner and string-inner content
Parsed trees are cached and incrementally updated on edits for performance