NucleScript for VS Code

Syntax highlighting and a live language server for .nsl files — NucleScript, the declarative DNA-storage operations language for NucleOS.

Repository & issues: github.com/VyomKulshrestha/Nucle-OS

Features

• Syntax highlighting for every NucleScript keyword, type, and literal form (3x, 99.5%, 10MB, dates), kept in sync with the real compiler grammar.
• Live diagnostics as you type — the same errors/warnings, error codes, and source spans the nucle check CLI command reports.
• Hover for pool/function/strand/sequence/binding signatures.
• Go to Definition — jump from a use site to its declaration.
• Document outline — every top-level symbol, for the breadcrumb and outline views.
• Format Document / format on save — NucleScript's one canonical, zero-configuration style. Enable format-on-save the normal VS Code way:

  { "[nuclescript]": { "editor.formatOnSave": true } }
  

• Run File — a ▷ button in the editor title bar (also Ctrl+F5 / Cmd+F5, the command palette, and the Explorer right-click menu) that actually executes the program: encode, store, retrieve, simulate, whatever the file does, with output in an integrated terminal — the same as pressing Run in any other language extension.
• Result<T, E> / ? — highlighting, diagnostics, hover, and Run File all understand NucleScript's error propagation: store/delete can produce a catchable Result<T, Str> instead of aborting the whole program on failure, unwrapped or propagated with ?.
• Generics — fn name<T>(...) over Pool<T>'s profile, so the same function works for Illumina/Nanopore/Twist instead of needing one copy per profile. Highlighting, diagnostics, hover, formatting, and nucle doc all render and check the type-parameter list correctly.
• Pattern matching — match attempt { Ok(file) => file, Err(reason) => ... } branches on a caught Result directly, instead of needing a second, independent function call from the caller. Highlighting, diagnostics, hover, and formatting all understand match/Ok/Err/ =>.
• Closures — fn(params) -> T { body } is an anonymous closure literal with real lexical capture; Fn(...) -> T is its type, usable as a let annotation or a function parameter's type (genuinely higher-order functions). Highlighting, diagnostics, hover, and formatting all understand Fn(...) and closure literals — including generic closures (fn<T>(...)) and a closure calling itself by its own bound name.
• Ok(...)/Err(...) constructors, explicit ::<Illumina>() type arguments, and real parameter values — Result values can now be built directly (Ok(saved), Err("reason")), composed with nested match/?, and a generic call can spell out its type argument explicitly when inference alone can't resolve it. A statement-form store/retrieve/delete inside a function body, and a File/Str- typed parameter's real argument value, now genuinely reach nucle run — not just type-check. Highlighting, diagnostics, hover, formatting, and nucle doc all understand the new syntax.

Not yet included: autocomplete, rename/refactoring, and semantic-token highlighting (syntax highlighting already covers most of that).

Getting started

1. In an empty folder, create a file named sample_a.txt with any text in it — store below archives a real file, so it needs to exist. .nsl files resolve store/retrieve paths relative to their own folder, so put it next to hello.nsl in the next step.

2. Create hello.nsl in the same folder:

   pool archive: DnaPool {
       codec: Ternary,
       redundancy: 2x,
       profile: Illumina
   }
   
   store "sample_a.txt" into archive
   
   retrieve from archive
   

3. Click the ▷ Run File button in the top-right of the editor (or press Ctrl+F5 / Cmd+F5). Nothing else to install: both nucle-lsp (highlighting/diagnostics/hover) and nucle-cli (formatting and running) download themselves the first time they're needed, cached after that.

You'll see real output in the terminal — the encode/store/retrieve result, strand counts, redundancy — not just a syntax check. (A "failed to read... sample_a.txt" error means step 1 was skipped, or the file ended up in a different folder than hello.nsl.)

More complete examples (per-store options, a full simulate → consensus vote → encode/protect/store/verify pipeline, catching a real store failure with Result<T, E>/? instead of aborting the run, one function generic over three different pool profiles, branching on a caught Result directly with match, a genuinely higher-order function with real closure capture, a self-recursive closure, and an explicit ::<Illumina>() type argument paired with a real File-typed parameter value) live in docs/examples/ in the main repo — start with store.nsl, then hero.nsl, then result_fallback_store.nsl, then generic_pool_recovery.nsl, then match_result_fallback.nsl, then closure_retry.nsl, then explicit_type_args_and_file_param.nsl.

Using the official packages: imports like from "nuclescript/presets" (@nuclescript/presets, @nuclescript/profiles, @nuclescript/benchmarks, @nuclescript/recovery — see the package registry) get full hover and diagnostics with no install step: those four packages are compiled directly into both nucle-lsp and nucle-cli, not fetched over the network. nucle-cli package install/lock/verify is only for generating a nucle.lock for reproducible builds — the editor doesn't need it.

Requirements

Nothing — the extension is a client for two command-line tools from the NucleOS project, but both are fetched for you automatically the first time they're needed:

Already have nucle-lsp/nucle-cli on PATH (e.g. a local Rust build)? That's used automatically instead of downloading anything — see building from source.

Settings

Troubleshooting

• No diagnostics/hover, or an error naming nuclescript.serverPath: the extension couldn't find or download a nucle-lsp binary for your platform/architecture. Build one (cargo build -p nucle_lsp --release from a NucleOS checkout) and point nuclescript.serverPath at it.
• Format Document or Run File shows an error naming nuclescript.cliPath: same thing for nucle-cli — build it (cargo build -p nucle_cli --release) and point nuclescript.cliPath at the built binary.
• Run File does nothing: it only runs .nsl files — make sure the active editor tab is a NucleScript file, and check the "NucleScript" terminal panel for the actual error output.

Contributing

Local development setup, grammar testing, and the release process live in CONTRIBUTING.md in the repository — not duplicated here since this page is what installs show, not what contributors need.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.