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Editor & IDE Setup

Note: Incan-specific tooling is in development. This guide will be updated as the tooling improves.

On this page:

Syntax Highlighting

Incan Syntax Highlighting
Example of Incan Syntax Highlighting in VS Code

The Incan extension provides full syntax highlighting for .incn files.

Installation:

  1. Copy the editors/vscode/ folder to your VS Code extensions directory:
# macOS/Linux
cp -r editors/vscode ~/.vscode/extensions/incan-language

# Or for Cursor
cp -r editors/vscode ~/.cursor/extensions/incan-language

  1. Restart VS Code/Cursor

  2. Open any .incn file - syntax highlighting should work automatically

Features:

  • Full syntax highlighting for all Incan constructs
  • Keywords: model, class, trait, enum, newtype, async, await
  • Rust-style operators: ?, ::
  • F-string interpolation highlighting
  • Type annotations
  • Decorators (@derive, @skip, etc.)
  • Markdown code block highlighting for incan language
  • LSP integration - Diagnostics, hover, go-to-definition (requires incan-lsp)

See editors/vscode/README.md for full details.

Alternative: Use Python highlighting

If you don't want to install the extension:

  1. Open Settings (Cmd/Ctrl + ,)
  2. Search for "files.associations"
  3. Add: "*.incn": "python"

Note: Although most of the syntax for Incan is supported by Python, using Python highlighting will not provide the full Incan experience. It's a good way to 'get started' quickly without installing the extension.

Vim/Neovim

Add to your config:

" Associate .incn files with Python syntax
autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead *.incn set filetype=python

JetBrains IDEs (PyCharm, IntelliJ)

  1. Go to Settings → Editor → File Types
  2. Find "Python" and add *.incn to registered patterns

Language Server (LSP)

The Incan Language Server provides IDE integration:

  • Real-time diagnostics - See errors as you type
  • Hover information - View types and signatures
  • Go-to-definition - Jump to symbol definitions
  • Completions - Keywords and symbols

See Language Server for setup instructions.

Format on Save

VS Code / Cursor

Once the Incan extension is available, format-on-save will be supported.

For now, you can set up a task or use a file watcher:

// .vscode/tasks.json
{
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "tasks": [
    {
      "label": "Format Incan",
      "type": "shell",
      "command": "incan fmt ${file}",
      "group": "build",
      "presentation": {
        "reveal": "silent"
      }
    }
  ]
}
  • Error Lens - Inline error display
  • TODO Highlight - Track TODOs in code

Next Steps