Bee for VS Code

Language support for BeeLang — syntax highlighting, smart completions, hovers, and snippets for .be and .bee files.

Features

🎨 Syntax highlighting

Full TextMate grammar covering keywords, strings (single & double quoted), numbers, both comment styles (# and //), class and function declarations, built-in functions, constants, and operators.

💡 Completions

• Keywords — let, fn, class, if, for, while, return, import, …
• Built-in functions — with signatures and inline documentation.
• Type methods — .-completions for string / list / dict methods (upper, push, keys, …).
• Local symbols — functions, classes, let variables, parameters, and loop variables declared in the current file.

📖 Hovers

Hover any built-in function to see its signature and a short description.

✂️ Snippets

Tab-completable snippets for common constructs:

⚙️ Editing conveniences

Auto-closing brackets and quotes, comment toggling (Ctrl + /), and sensible auto-indentation.

🐝 File icons

.be and .bee files get a bee icon in the Explorer (with a file-icon theme that shows language icons, such as the default Seti theme).

Installation

From a released .vsix

Download the .vsix from the latest release and install it:

code --install-extension bee-0.1.1.vsix

From source

Copy the repository into your VS Code extensions folder and reload:

git clone https://github.com/beelang-project/vscode-bee.git \
    ~/.vscode/extensions/bee-0.1.1

Then reload the window (Command Palette → Developer: Reload Window). Open any .be / .bee file and language support activates automatically.

On Windows, clone into %USERPROFILE%\.vscode\extensions\bee-0.1.1.

Develop it (Extension Development Host)

code .

Press F5 to launch a second VS Code window with the extension loaded — ideal for hacking on the grammar or providers.

Package a .vsix yourself (needs Node)

npm install -g @vscode/vsce
vsce package                              # → bee-0.1.1.vsix
code --install-extension bee-0.1.1.vsix

Requirements

The extension is pure editor tooling — it does not bundle the interpreter. To run programs, install the bee interpreter from the BeeLang repository so you can:

bee path/to/script.bee

Known limitations

• Method completion after . lists the union of string / list / dict methods — the extension does no type inference, so pick the one that fits your value.
• Symbol completion is a lightweight regex scan of the open file, not a full parse. It favors being helpful over being exhaustive.
• Highlighting needs no activation; completions and hovers activate on the first .be / .bee file you open.
• BeeLang 0.2.0's f"..." interpolated strings and slice syntax aren't highlighted yet.

Project structure

No build step — the extension is plain JavaScript.

Releasing

The extension is versioned independently of the interpreter. The tag must match version in package.json exactly — the workflow fails the build if they disagree, rather than shipping a .vsix whose filename contradicts its contents. So bump the manifest first, then tag what it says:

# 1. edit "version" in package.json, e.g. to 0.1.1
# 2. tag exactly that version:
v=$(node -p "require('./package.json').version")
git commit -am "Release $v"
git tag "v$v" && git push origin main "v$v"

.github/workflows/release.yml then packages the .vsix, and attaches it to a GitHub Release. It also publishes to the Marketplace once a VSCE_PAT secret is configured.

License

MIT © 2026 Atanu Debnath. Part of the BeeLang project.