Mach VS Code Extension

Official editor support for the Mach programming language.

About Mach

Mach is a statically typed, compiled systems language with explicit control over data layout and resource management. The language emphasizes:

• Explicit control - No implicit heap allocation, lifetime management, or type coercion
• Predictable semantics - Well-defined types and compile-time error checking
• C interoperability - Data layout and calling conventions align with the platform C ABI
• Minimal core - Small, orthogonal feature set that composes well

For the complete language specification, see ../mach/doc/language-spec.md.

Features

• Rich syntax highlighting kept in sync with the latest compiler keywords, intrinsics, and operators
• Support for modern Mach features including:
  • Records (rec) and unions (uni)
  • Generic types and functions with <T> syntax
  • Method definitions using Type.method syntax
  • Preprocessor directives (#@if, #@or, #@end, #@symbol)
  • Variadic functions and intrinsics
• Line comments with # including toggle/comment actions
• Bracket, brace, and quote auto-closing/surrounding pairs aligned with the Mach parser
• Language server integration offering hover, go-to-definition, references, and completion via mach-lsp
• Command palette actions to build, run, and debug Mach workspaces without leaving VS Code

Getting Started

1. Install the extension from the Marketplace or load this workspace in VS Code
2. Open a .mach source file - syntax highlighting and comment toggling work out-of-the-box
3. Pair with the cmach compiler (bootstrap compiler) or future self-hosted compiler from the mach repository
4. Use the Mach: Build Project, Mach: Run Project, and Mach: Debug Project commands to work with your Mach projects

Language server integration

The extension now launches the experimental mach-lsp server on demand.

1. Build the sibling repository:

    cd ../mach-lsp
    make
   

2. Open this mach-vscode folder in VS Code and launch the extension (F5) or install it from a packaged .vsix.
3. The extension looks for ../mach-lsp/out/bin/mach-lsp by default. Override the binary path via the mach.lspPath setting if you keep the server elsewhere.
4. Use the Mach: Restart Language Server command from the palette after rebuilding the server.

Set mach.trace.server to verbose in user settings to inspect the JSON-RPC traffic while debugging the language server.

Build, run, and debug settings

All commands use the workspace root as their working directory and can be tuned through the following settings:

• mach.buildCommand (default make) – shell command invoked by Mach: Build Project.
• mach.runCommand (default make run) – shell command invoked by Mach: Run Project inside a fresh terminal.
• mach.debug.preLaunchBuild (default true) – run the build command automatically before debugging.
• mach.debug.program (default out/bin/app) – relative path to the executable launched by Mach: Debug Project.
• mach.debug.adapter (default cppdbg) – debugger integration: choose between cppdbg, codelldb, or a terminal-based gdb session.
• mach.debug.gdbPath (default gdb) – debugger executable used for the cppdbg session.

Contributing

• Report syntax gaps or highlighting bugs in the mach-vscode repository
• For language design issues, see the main mach repository
• When publishing, remember to bump the version in package.json and run:

vsce publish [major|minor|patch]

The Mach language is under active development; changes may occur as the language evolves toward self-hosting.