LSP & Neovim; A Retrospective!

What is Language Server Protocol (opens in a new tab) (LSP)? It's a protocol specifically designed for IDE(s) to communicate with a language server to provide language features like auto-completion, go-to-definition, diagnostics, etc. LSP in itself is a specification (opens in a new tab) that defines how language author should write a Language/LSP Server and how IDE(s) should implement a Language/LSP Client so that both could understand each other. The message format defined by the protocol is JSON (RPC).

Nowadays most modern IDEs, and Text Editors like Neovim (opens in a new tab), have a language client builtin that can understand the protocol and communicate with a language server.

Some people still get confused between the protocol, server, and client. So there you have it :)

Sans-LSP Era

I started using neovim around 4 years ago, and at that time there was no native LSP support but luckily there were some awesome LSP client implementations available for both neovim/vim.

Honestly, when I started using neovim I didn't even know what was a LSP. I blame VSCode for spoiling me. So, like any other smooth brained human I googled "How to make neovim like VSCode?"

Enter CoC.nvim (opens in a new tab) (Conquer Of Completion), for those who don't know, CoC.nvim is a LSP client implementation for neovim/vim that can communicate with a LSP server making our beloved editor as (more?) powerful as an IDE. So, I (not so) quickly configured CoC and was blown away by how much difference something like CoC can make and how easy is to extend CoC using a bucket load of language server plugins (opens in a new tab) also known as coc plugins. CoC was a godsend for me because it allowed me to make neovim my primary editor. Especially for javascript/typescript (opens in a new tab) development CoC was perfect. Need prettier? Boom (opens in a new tab). Need eslint? Got'em (opens in a new tab). In my opinion, CoC.nvim was more like a headless VSCode because configuring the servers in CoC was similar to VSCode and it was also capable of handling snippets, auto-completion, etc.

Although LSP client being a critical part of a modern editing experience, there was something that was left to be desired. This was heard by Neovim Team (opens in a new tab) loud and clear, and they were cooking something for everyone.

Woaahhh! We now have LSP

After a couple of years of last major release, Neovim v0.5.0 got released on July 2021, finally ending the question "Release 0.5.0! When?". This was the first release that brought native LSP #11336 (opens in a new tab) #11430 (opens in a new tab) and first-class Lua (opens in a new tab), and experimental treesitter (opens in a new tab) #10124 (opens in a new tab) support. Everyone in the community was happy to seeing it finally released.

Neovim exposed generic lua API (opens in a new tab) for setting up LSP servers but most users got confused on the setup part. Thus the birth of lspconfig (opens in a new tab) (initially called nvim-lsp) which was, still is, a plugin that contains configuration for various language servers making it painless to setup native LSP. And some brave (nightly) users had already created (opens in a new tab) awesome (opens in a new tab) plugins (opens in a new tab) to further make the native LSP adoption easy and seamless.

Using lspconfig is pretty easy and straightforward. Following example shows how to setup rust-analyzer (opens in a new tab) and lua-language-server (opens in a new tab)

local lsp = require("lspconfig")
 
local function on_attach(client, buf)
    vim.keymap.set("n", "gd", vim.lsp.buf.definition, { buffer = buf })
    vim.keymap.set("n", "gh", vim.lsp.buf.hover, { buffer = buf })
    vim.keymap.set("n", "[g", vim.diagnostic.goto_prev, { buffer = buf })
    vim.keymap.set("n", "]g", vim.diagnostic.goto_next, { buffer = buf })
end
 
-- Lua
lsp.sumneko_lua.setup({
    on_attach = on_attach,
    settings = {
        Lua = {
            completion = { enable = true, showWord = "Disable" },
            runtime = { version = "LuaJIT" },
            workspace = { library = { os.getenv("VIMRUNTIME") } },
            telemetry = { enable = false },
        },
    },
})
 
-- Rust
lsp.rust_analyzer.setup({
    on_attach = on_attach,
    settings = {
        ["rust-analyzer"] = {
            cargo = { allFeatures = true },
            checkOnSave = { allFeatures = true, command = "clippy" },
        },
    },
})

You need to use a plugin manager in order to install lspconfig. I recommend packer.nvim (opens in a new tab).

Being an early and first iteration of the implementation comes with apparent bugs, usability, and extensibility issues. I think everyone was aware of that but still, that didn't stop most users to adopt native LSP and help Neovim Team to polish the LSP experience. For the rest, myself included, they wanted to give native LSP some time to mature so they can port their workflow from CoC.nvim or VSCode.

LSP goes on

On Nov 2021, We got v0.6.0 which improves upon the initial LSP and Lua experience, including bug fixes, performance (opens in a new tab) and API improvements, etc., and also brought standalone diagnostics module (opens in a new tab) for linters like eslint, luacheck, etc. This release was perfect in terms of stability and widespread adoption. I finally jumped onto the native LSP train from CoC.nvim, but it wasn't that easy. Being a web developer requires you to deal with some "javascript" shenanigans like prettier, eslint etc. Also, the fact that typescript doesn't have an official language server despite Microsoft being the creator of typescript breaks my brain. It took me months to move everything (opens in a new tab) from CoC.nvim to lspconfig, nvim-cmp (opens in a new tab) (for snippets & auto-completion) and null-ls (opens in a new tab) (for eslint and prettier). Before all these features were handled my CoC alone, which makes you respect the project more.

Despite being lightweight and performant, there were some questions regarding LSP client's performance and some comparing with CoC.nvim (reddit: 1 (opens in a new tab) 2 (opens in a new tab) 3 (opens in a new tab) 4 (opens in a new tab)). Nevertheless, v0.6.0 was a solid release.

In my experience, Neovim's LSP client was just as good as CoC or VSCode. What people don't realize is that sometimes their LSP server could be the reason for slow down which leads to editor/LSP client being slow. And to be honest, Neovim + LSP is a much better experience than slow-as-molasses VSCode.

Couple of months later, We got v0.7.0 release on April 2022, including bug fixes to LSP but this release was more focused on improving existing and bringing new Lua APIs like autocmds (opens in a new tab), filetype.lua (opens in a new tab).

Into The Future

We have come a long way since the initial LSP support in v0.5.0 and I believe that the current LSP interface is fairly stable. The team is now focusing on improving the user experience and upstreaming some of the best parts of lspconfig into the core. And one of the API is vim.lsp.start() #18631 (opens in a new tab). The main difference between vim.lsp.start() and vim.lsp.start_client() is that the former automatically re-attaches the running LSP server to the current buffer. The second one is LspAttach and LspDetach autocmds #18507 (opens in a new tab), allowing easy configuration for lsp-related stuff like keymaps. All these shiny stuff will be released with v0.8.0.

If you are impatient like me then check out nightly (opens in a new tab) release

With v0.8.0, You could setup LSP server like rust-analyzer, lua-language-server, and some keymaps without any plugin:

local lsp = vim.api.nvim_create_augroup("LSP", { clear = true })
 
-- Lua
-- NOTE: you could also use ftplugin/lua.lua to setup the LSP server
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("FileType", {
    group = lsp,
    pattern = "lua",
    callback = function()
        local path = vim.fs.find({ ".luarc.json", ".luacheckrc", "stylua.toml", ".git" })
        vim.lsp.start({
            name = "lua-language-server",
            cmd = { "lua-language-server" },
            root_dir = vim.fs.dirname(path[1]),
            settings = {
                Lua = {
                    completion = { enable = true, showWord = "Disable" },
                    runtime = { version = "LuaJIT" },
                    workspace = { library = { os.getenv("VIMRUNTIME") } },
                    telemetry = { enable = false },
                },
            },
        })
    end,
})
 
-- Rust
-- NOTE: you could also use ftplugin/rust.lua to setup the LSP server
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("FileType", {
    group = lsp,
    pattern = "rust",
    callback = function()
        local path = vim.fs.find({ "Cargo.toml" }, { type = "file" })
        vim.lsp.start({
            name = "rust-analyzer",
            cmd = { "rust-analyzer" },
            root_dir = vim.fs.dirname(path[1]),
            settings = {
                ["rust-analyzer"] = {
                    cargo = { allFeatures = true },
                    checkOnSave = { allFeatures = true, command = "clippy" },
                },
            },
        })
    end,
})
 
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("LspAttach", {
    group = lsp,
    callback = function(args)
        vim.keymap.set("n", "gd", vim.lsp.buf.definition, { buffer = args.buf })
        vim.keymap.set("n", "gh", vim.lsp.buf.hover, { buffer = args.buf })
        vim.keymap.set("n", "[g", vim.diagnostic.goto_prev, { buffer = args.buf })
        vim.keymap.set("n", "]g", vim.diagnostic.goto_next, { buffer = args.buf })
    end,
})
 
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("LspDetach", {
    group = lsp,
    callback = function(args)
        vim.keymap.del("n", "gd", { buffer = args.buf })
        vim.keymap.del("n", "gh", { buffer = args.buf })
        vim.keymap.del("n", "[g", { buffer = args.buf })
        vim.keymap.del("n", "]g", { buffer = args.buf })
    end,
})

Keep in mind that lspconfig is not going to be deprecated and will function alongside the new API. In fact, lspconfig is likely to get benefit from these new API changes.

At last, I would like to thank everyone who was, and still is, involved in the process of making LSP support a reality and improving numerous other things in Neovim :)