# kotlin-language-server

**Repository Path**: radiumon/kotlin-language-server

## Basic Information

- **Project Name**: kotlin-language-server
- **Description**: No description available
- **Primary Language**: Unknown
- **License**: MIT
- **Default Branch**: main
- **Homepage**: None
- **GVP Project**: No

## Statistics

- **Stars**: 0
- **Forks**: 0
- **Created**: 2025-11-20
- **Last Updated**: 2025-11-20

## Categories & Tags

**Categories**: Uncategorized

**Tags**: None

## README

> [!IMPORTANT]
> There is now an [official language server](https://github.com/Kotlin/kotlin-lsp), so this project can be considered deprecated.

# Kotlin Language Server

[![Release](https://img.shields.io/github/release/fwcd/kotlin-language-server)](https://github.com/fwcd/kotlin-language-server/releases)
[![Build](https://github.com/fwcd/kotlin-language-server/actions/workflows/build.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/fwcd/kotlin-language-server/actions/workflows/build.yml)
[![Downloads](https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/fwcd/kotlin-language-server/total)](https://github.com/fwcd/kotlin-language-server/releases)
[![Chat](https://img.shields.io/badge/chat-on%20discord-7289da)](https://discord.gg/cNtppzN)

A [language server](https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/) that provides smart code completion, diagnostics, hover, document symbols, definition lookup, method signature help and more for [Kotlin](https://kotlinlang.org).

![Icon](Icon128.png)

Any editor conforming to LSP is supported, including [VSCode](https://github.com/fwcd/vscode-kotlin) and [Atom](https://github.com/fwcd/atom-ide-kotlin).

## Getting Started

* See [BUILDING.md](BUILDING.md) for build instructions
* See [Editor Integration](EDITORS.md) for editor-specific instructions
* See [Troubleshooting](TROUBLESHOOTING.md) for tips on troubleshooting errors
* See [Roadmap](https://github.com/fwcd/kotlin-language-server/projects/1) for features, planned additions, bugfixes and changes
* See [Kotlin Quick Start](https://github.com/fwcd/kotlin-quick-start) for a sample project
* See [Kotlin Debug Adapter](https://github.com/fwcd/kotlin-debug-adapter) for editor-agnostic launch and debug support of Kotlin/JVM programs
* See [tree-sitter-kotlin](https://github.com/fwcd/tree-sitter-kotlin) for an experimental [Tree-Sitter](https://tree-sitter.github.io/tree-sitter/) grammar

## Packaging

[![Packaging status](https://repology.org/badge/vertical-allrepos/kotlin-language-server.svg)](https://repology.org/project/kotlin-language-server/versions)

## This repository needs your help!

[The original author](https://github.com/georgewfraser) created this project while he was considering using Kotlin in his work. He ended up deciding not to and is not really using Kotlin these days though this is a pretty fully-functional language server that just needs someone to use it every day for a while and iron out the last few pesky bugs.

There are two hard parts of implementing a language server:
- Figuring out the dependencies
- Incrementally re-compiling as the user types

The project uses the internal APIs of the [Kotlin compiler](https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin/tree/master/compiler).

### Figuring out the dependencies

Dependencies are determined by the [DefaultClassPathResolver.kt](shared/src/main/kotlin/org/javacs/kt/classpath/DefaultClassPathResolver.kt), which invokes Maven or Gradle to get a list of classpath JARs. Alternatively, projects can also 'manually' provide a list of dependencies through a shell script, located either at `[project root]/kls-classpath` or `[config root]/kotlin-language-server/classpath`, which outputs a list of JARs. Depending on your platform, the scripts also can be suffixed with `.{sh,bat,cmd}`.

* Example of the `~/.config/kotlin-language-server/classpath` on Linux:
```bash
#!/bin/bash
echo /my/path/kotlin-compiler-1.4.10/lib/kotlin-stdlib.jar:/my/path/my-lib.jar
```

* Example of the `%HOMEPATH%\.config\kotlin-language-server\classpath.bat` on Windows:
```cmd
@echo off
echo C:\my\path\kotlin-compiler-1.4.10\lib\kotlin-stdlib.jar;C:\my\path\my-lib.jar
```

### Incrementally re-compiling as the user types

I get incremental compilation at the file-level by keeping the same `KotlinCoreEnvironment` alive between compilations in [Compiler.kt](server/src/main/kotlin/org/javacs/kt/compiler/Compiler.kt). There is a performance benchmark in [OneFilePerformance.kt](server/src/test/kotlin/org/javacs/kt/OneFilePerformance.kt) that verifies this works.

Getting incremental compilation at the expression level is a bit more complicated:
- Fully compile a file and store in [CompiledFile](server/src/main/kotlin/org/javacs/kt/CompiledFile.kt):
    - `val content: String` A snapshot of the source code
    - `val parse: KtFile` The parsed AST
    - `val compile: BindingContext` Additional information about the AST from typechecking
- After the user edits the file:
    - Find the smallest section the encompasses all the user changes
    - Get the `LexicalScope` encompassing this region from the `BindingContext` that was generated by the full-compile
    - Create a fake, in-memory .kt file with just the expression we want to re-compile
        - [Add space](https://github.com/fwcd/kotlin-language-server/blob/427cfa7a688d6d2ff202625ebad1ea605e3b8c37/server/src/main/kotlin/org/javacs/kt/CompiledFile.kt#L125) at the top of the file so the line numbers match up
    - Re-compile this tiny fake file

The incremental expression compilation logic is all in [CompiledFile.kt](server/src/main/kotlin/org/javacs/kt/CompiledFile.kt). The Kotlin AST has a built-in repair API, which seems to be how IntelliJ works, but as far as I can tell this API does not work if the surrounding IntelliJ machinery is not present. Hence I created the "fake tiny file" incremental-compilation mechanism, which seems to be quite fast and predictable.

There is an extensive suite of behavioral [tests](server/src/test/kotlin/org/javacs/kt), which are all implemented in terms of the language server protocol, so you should be able to refactor the code any way you like and the tests should still work.

## Modules

| Name | Description |
| ---- | ----------- |
| server | The language server executable |
| shared | Classpath resolution and utilities |

## Scripts

| Name | Command | Description |
| ---- | ------- | ----------- |
| release_version.py | `python3 scripts/release_version.py` | Creates a tag for the current version and bumps the development version |

## Protocol Extensions

The Kotlin language server supports some non-standard requests through LSP. See [KotlinProtocolExtensions](server/src/main/kotlin/org/javacs/kt/KotlinProtocolExtensions.kt) for a description of the interface. The general syntax for these methods is `kotlin/someCustomMethod`.

## Initialization Options

The Kotlin language server supports some custom initialization options via the `initializationOptions` property in the `initialize` request parameters. See `InitializationOptions` in [Configuration](server/src/main/kotlin/org/javacs/kt/Configuration.kt) for a list of supported properties.

## Features

### Autocomplete
![Autocomplete](images/Autocomplete.png)

### Signature help
![Signature Help](images/SignatureHelp.png)

### Hover
![Hover](images/Hover.png)

### Go-to-definition, find all references
![Find all references](images/FindAllReferences.png)

### Document symbols
![Document symbols](images/DocumentSymbols.png)

### Global symbols
![Global symbols](images/GlobalSymbols.png)


## Authors
* [georgewfraser](https://github.com/georgewfraser)
* [fwcd](https://github.com/fwcd)