Editor Setup

mashin provides editor extensions for VS Code and Zed, plus a tree-sitter grammar that works with any editor that supports tree-sitter.

VS Code

The VS Code extension provides syntax highlighting, completions, hover documentation, go-to-definition, formatting, and diagnostics.

Installation

Install from the marketplace (search “mashin”) or install locally for development:

# Symlink the extension into your VS Code extensions directory
ln -s /path/to/mashin-core/tools/mashin-vscode ~/.vscode/extensions/mashin-language

Restart VS Code. Open any .mashin file to verify syntax highlighting.

Features

Feature	What it does
Syntax highlighting	Full mashinTalk grammar (TextMate)
Completions	Keywords, step types, @mashin/actions/* machines, config options
Hover	Documentation for keywords, step types, stdlib machines, context accessors
Go-to-definition	Navigate to stdlib machines, local machines, steps, input fields
Formatting	Format via the mashin language server
Diagnostics	Real-time validation of machine structure and syntax
Snippets	25+ templates for machines, steps, goals, and common patterns

Snippets

Type these prefixes and press Tab:

Prefix	Creates
machine	New machine skeleton
step-reason	LLM reasoning step
step-code	Pure computation step
step-call	Call an action machine
step-memory	Memory operation step
inputs	Input schema block
outputs	Output schema block
goal	Goal specification
call-http-get	Call @mashin/actions/http/get
call-http-post	Call @mashin/actions/http/post
permissions	Permission policies
hooks	Step hooks/middleware

Enabling the language server

The extension ships with a bundled server, so completions, diagnostics and formatting work out of the box with no build step.

To use the full mashin language server instead (the same one the CLI runs), point the extension at it in VS Code settings:

{
  "mashin.languageServer.command": "mashin lsp"
}

mashin lsp speaks LSP over stdio and needs no computer running.

Zed

The Zed extension uses the tree-sitter grammar for syntax highlighting and connects to the language server for completions, hover, and diagnostics.

Installation

In Zed, open the Extensions panel (Cmd+Shift+X), select “Install Dev Extension…”, and point it at the tools/mashin-zed/ directory.

Enabling the language server

Add to your Zed settings (~/.config/zed/settings.json):

{
  "lsp": {
    "mashin-language-server": {
      "binary": {
        "path": "mashin",
        "arguments": ["lsp"]
      }
    }
  }
}

Tree-sitter grammar

The tree-sitter grammar is the canonical definition of mashinTalk syntax. Any editor with tree-sitter support can use it.

The grammar lives at tools/tree-sitter-mashin-talk/grammar.js. It handles the full mashinTalk keyword-hierarchy syntax including:

• Machine declarations and all section types
• Step types (compute, ask, decide, for_each, etc.)
• Expressions (arithmetic, string interpolation, arrow functions, match expressions)
• Comments (line and block)

Using with other editors

For editors like Neovim, Helix, or Emacs (with tree-sitter support):

1. Clone or link the tools/tree-sitter-mashin-talk/ directory
2. Build the parser: cd tools/tree-sitter-mashin-talk && tree-sitter generate && tree-sitter build
3. Configure your editor to use the grammar for .mashin files
4. Copy the highlight queries from tools/tree-sitter-mashin-talk/queries/ into your editor’s query directory

Next steps

• Language Server - Full LSP feature reference
• CLI Reference - The command-line tool