Rohit Serializer for Visual Studio

Write Serializer schemas and navigate between schema declarations and generated code directly in Visual Studio.

Rohit Serializer adds syntax highlighting, editing support, and native navigation for .serializer files in Visual Studio 2022 and Visual Studio 2026 on Windows x64.

Built for the open-source Serializer schema compiler and serialization library.

Features

Theme-aware syntax highlighting

Read and edit schemas with highlighting for keywords, declarations, fields, comments, and custom types. Qualified references such as demo::order use your active theme’s type and namespace colors.

Editing support includes comment toggling, bracket and quote pairing, and indentation.

Navigate schemas with familiar commands

• Go to Declaration opens the source declaration of a schema type or an included schema.
• Go to Type Definition opens a schema type’s class or enum declaration.
• Go to Definition (F12) and Ctrl+click navigate from schema types to existing generated code, with a fallback to the schema declaration when generated output is unavailable.
• Navigation on an include opens the included schema.
• When multiple generated destinations are available, choose the one you need from a picker.

Navigation supports qualified names, extensionless and transitive includes, container element types, inheritance, enum type references in defaults, and unsaved schema edits.

Connect generated code to its schema

Use Go to Declaration on a generated type declaration to return to its originating schema.

Generated-output navigation supports all 11 Serializer output languages:

C++, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, C#, Rust, Python, Swift, Kotlin, and C.

Language-specific naming profiles and flattened generated names are supported. From application code, use your language’s normal navigation to reach the generated type, then Go to Declaration to open its schema.

Get started

1. Install Rohit Serializer and restart Visual Studio.
2. Open your project or solution and a .serializer file.
3. Use the navigation commands to explore schema types and includes.
4. Build your project’s Serializer generation targets to enable navigation to generated output.

Keep the compiler’s dependency files (--depfile) alongside generated output or within the solution tree, especially when outputs are renamed. Serializer’s CMake generation helpers already produce this metadata.

About Serializer

Serializer is a C++20 schema compiler and serialization library that generates code for 11 languages, with JSON and binary serialization support. Define your data structures in .serializer schemas and integrate code generation into your build.

The extension provides editor support. Install the Serializer compiler and runtime separately to generate and use serialization code.

Code generation runs through your project’s build or CMake targets. The extension navigates existing files; it does not automatically generate output or provide semantic diagnostics, code completion, or snippets.

Documentation and source

• Serializer GitHub repository
• Getting started and usage guide
• Compiler installation and CMake integration
• Examples
• Visual Studio extension documentation
• Report an issue or request a feature

Supports Visual Studio Community, Professional, and Enterprise on Windows x64. ARM64 and Visual Studio releases earlier than 2022 are not supported.