EvaLuate (.evt) — VS Code extension

Syntax highlighting, IntelliSense and autocomplete for EvaLuate .evt scripts — the YAML-frontmatter-plus-sandboxed-Lua files you write to script a Godot game with EvaLuate.

What you get

• Highlighting — the leading --- … --- signature is highlighted as YAML; the body as Lua.
• Frontmatter IntelliSense — completion, validation and hover for the signature block:
  • apis: → the real capability list (input, world, scene, save, sql), with a warning on anything undeclared/unknown;
  • register: → the actual lifecycle hooks (system vs node hooks, picked by filename);
  • top-level keys (config/apis/register/returns/assets/scenes). These are read from your project's generated evaluate-api.json when present, so they track your exact EvaLuate version (a small built-in fallback is used otherwise).
• Lua IntelliSense in the body — completion, hover, signature help, go-to-definition and diagnostics over the Lua part only (the frontmatter is hidden from the analyzer), backed by lua-language-server and your generated LuaCATS types — so godot.*, std.*, save, scene, etc. autocomplete.
• Sandbox-aware completion — the body only autocompletes the capability apis this file actually declared in apis:. If you didn't declare save, save won't be suggested, and using it anyway gets a warning ('save' is used but not declared in 'apis:') — mirroring the EvaLuate runtime, where an undeclared api is genuinely absent. godot/std/self are ambient and always available.

Requirements

The Lua body features need a lua-language-server binary. The easiest way is to install the Lua (sumneko) extension — this extension reuses its bundled server. Alternatively set evt.lua.serverPath to a lua-language-server executable. (Highlighting and frontmatter IntelliSense work with no server.)

Get the most out of it — generate the type library

The whole point is autocomplete over the actual godot.*/std.* API. Generate it from your project (EvaLuate ≥ the --emit-api release):

godot --headless --path . -- --emit-api downloads/spec

That writes downloads/spec/evaluate-api.json (drives frontmatter completion) and downloads/spec/luacats/*.lua (drives Lua-body completion). The default settings already point at downloads/spec/…; adjust evt.lua.libraryPaths / evt.spec.path if you put them elsewhere. Re-run after upgrading Godot or EvaLuate.

Settings

How it works

.evt is a hybrid file, so the extension runs its own lua-language-server and, via the language-client's document-sync middleware, blanks the frontmatter out of the text it syncs to the server — line-for-line, exactly what the EvaLuate runtime does. Because blanking preserves line and column numbers, every position maps 1:1, so completion/hover/diagnostics come back keyed to the real .evt file with no remapping. The server is told (via configuration middleware, without touching your settings) to treat *.evt as Lua and to load the generated LuaCATS library. The frontmatter gets its own EvaLuate-aware language features (it isn't Lua).

Install

• From a .vsix: code --install-extension evaluate-evt.vsix (or Extensions ▸ … ▸ Install from VSIX).
• Build it yourself: npm install && npm run package produces evaluate-evt.vsix.

Develop

npm install
npm run watch        # rebuild on change
# press F5 in VS Code to launch the Extension Development Host, open an .evt file

Publishing

The package is marketplace-ready (icon, metadata, bundled build). We publish to Open VSX — the registry used by VSCodium, Cursor, Windsurf, Gitpod and Theia. (No credit card; you log in with GitHub.)

One-time setup:

1. Sign in at https://open-vsx.org with GitHub, then sign the Eclipse Foundation Open VSX Publisher Agreement (Settings ▸ Profile).
2. Create an access token at https://open-vsx.org/user-settings/tokens.
3. Create the publisher namespace (must match publisher in package.json, radical-beard):

   npx ovsx create-namespace radical-beard -p <token>
   

4. Store the token as a GitHub Actions secret so CI can publish:

   gh secret set OVSX_PAT --repo radical-beard/evaluate
   

   (Run it from anywhere; it prompts for the value so the token never lands in your shell history. Drop --repo if you run it inside a clone of this repo.)

Release (CI): bump version in package.json, then tag — the publish-extension workflow builds and publishes to Open VSX:

git tag vscode-v0.1.0 && git push origin vscode-v0.1.0

Or publish from your machine:

npm run package
npx ovsx publish evaluate-evt.vsix -p <token>

No account is needed just to use it — share the .vsix and code --install-extension evaluate-evt.vsix.

Want the VS Code Marketplace too (reaches stock VS Code)? It needs an Azure DevOps PAT. Create a publisher at https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/manage, then npx @vscode/vsce publish --no-dependencies --packagePath evaluate-evt.vsix -p <pat> (and add the matching step back to the workflow).

License

MIT OR Apache-2.0, matching EvaLuate.