Strata for VS Code

Syntax highlighting and live compiler diagnostics for Strata — a systems language where the compiler checks the database, the business rules and the screens as one thing.

What it does

Highlighting that knows what Strata means. Two details it gets right that a generic grammar would not:

• A native block is C pasted through the compiler, so it is marked as embedded C rather than coloured as broken Strata.
• Inside a query, a bare name is a column, not a variable, and it is coloured differently. That is the difference between reading [token == token] as a comparison and seeing it for the bug it is — a mistake that once hid a sign-in bypass, and which the compiler now reports as E008.

The compiler's own diagnostics, underlined where they happened, as you type. Errors are underlined; E007 — an import with no local checkout — is shown as information rather than an error, because an editor that paints advisories red teaches people to ignore red.

The part no other language extension has

The compiler repairs your code, from the lightbulb.

Strata's diagnostics are machine-readable on purpose. strata repair reads them, patches the source, and recompiles until it is clean. This extension puts that behind the ordinary Quick Fix lightbulb on any Strata error:

database UserProfile { int user_id; str security_tier; }

list[UserProfile] risky = UserProfile <- [sec_tier == "HIGH"];
                                          ~~~~~~~~
        [E004] Column 'sec_tier' does not exist in 'UserProfile'
        💡 Repair E004 with the Strata compiler

One click, and the file compiles. Every other language's Quick Fix is a rule somebody wrote into the editor by hand. This one is the compiler.

Two deliberate limits, because repair rewrites the file on disk: the document is saved first, or repair would patch a stale copy and your unsaved buffer would overwrite the fix a moment later; and it is offered, never automatic — a compiler that edits your code without being asked is not a feature.

It is not a language server, on purpose

The extension runs the real strata check rather than reimplementing the language rules in JavaScript. A second implementation of the rules would be the first thing to drift out of step with the first. If the editor and the build disagree, the extension is wrong.

Requirements

The Strata toolchain, with strata on your PATH:

git clone https://github.com/prabathkumar/strata-core
cd strata-core
tools/install.sh

If strata lives somewhere else, set strata.toolchainPath.

Settings

Commands

Known limitations

• Highlighting, diagnostics and repair. No go-to-definition, no completion, no rename, no hover.
• Repair rewrites the file. It is driven by the compiler's own rules, and it recompiles to check itself, but read the diff before you commit it.
• Unsaved edits are checked by writing a scratch copy and checking that, so a very large file is copied on each keystroke pause. Turn off strata.checkOnType if that is noticeable.
• Strata is pre-release. So is this.

Licence

Apache-2.0. Strata is an independent project by Prabath Kumar.