RIDL for VS Code

Editor support for the RIDL family: typl, the type language; ridl, the interface description language; and rsdl, the system description language. One language server serves all three, since the compiler checks a .rsdl system, the .ridl services it names, and the .typl vocabulary they import together. The remaining family members (rmdl, and the rxdl file kind) are sequenced separately in docs/ROADMAP.md.

Learn the languages: getting started, typl reference, ridl reference, rsdl reference.

Features

• Syntax highlighting for .typl, .ridl and .rsdl files.
• Language server (ridl lsp): diagnostics, quick fixes, hovers, ordinal inlay hints, navigation, completion, rename, and whole-document formatting with the ridl fmt style, across all three languages. It loads the workspace of the nearest ridl.toml at or above the window's first folder, and shows a warning when that load fails. When the load fails or no folder is open, it loads the workspace of the first file you open that has a ridl.toml at or above it. A window or a file inside a member of a [workspace] loads the whole workspace that lists the member, so imports from the other members resolve.
• On a .ridl file: the ridl §11 ordinal renders beside every interaction and reserved tombstone, hovering an interaction expands its resolved timing into the per-kind reading of family general form §6.2, and completion offers the interaction keywords inside an interface body.
• On a .rsdl file: the system checks of the rsdl reference publish over the whole workspace; hover, go-to-definition and find-references follow a reference to the component, instance, system, service or interface it names; rename rewrites a system, component or instance with every reference to it; and completion offers what each slot admits — a service after offers, an interface after requires, a component on a member line.
• MCP server (ridl mcp): the extension registers an MCP server definition, so an MCP-aware agent host (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or another MCP client) can call the same ridl_check tool — the same parser, resolver and checker the editor and ridl check use — against a source string for typl, ridl or rsdl.
• RIDL: Install ridl to PATH command: copies the bundled ridl binary onto your terminal PATH, for use outside the editor.

Install

Releases are published to the VS Code Marketplace under "RIDL". A maintainer cuts each one from an editor-v* tag. The published extension bundles the ridl binary and runs it as ridl lsp (the language server) and ridl mcp (the MCP server Copilot sees). Before the first release, or to test a change, build the extension from source (below). The repository root also has installer scripts (install.sh / install.ps1) that download ridl alone from the newest editor-v* GitHub Release.

Once the extension is installed, by whichever route, run the command RIDL: Install ridl to PATH to use ridl from a terminal, Claude Code, or Codex too.

Build from source

ridl on PATH is enough for a development launch (F5 in editors/vscode):

cargo install --path crates/ridl

To build a .vsix with the binary bundled:

just package-vscode
code --install-extension editors/vscode/ridl-lang-<version>.vsix

Settings

Development

npm run watch

Then use the VS Code "Run Extension" launch configuration (Extension Development Host) against this folder, or open a .typl or .ridl file in an instance of VS Code started with --extensionDevelopmentPath=editors/vscode.