External Tools

There have been requests to integrate external tools with the slang language server. While integrations have only been made with waveform viewers so far, these are guidlines for how one would go about adding more integrations.

Integrations are typically working with a slang compilation (elaborated design), since these are an hdl-specific construct and outside the scope of the LSP.

In general it's preferred for the slang-server to initiate the handshake, since a user will likely always start with their editor, and move to more advanced tools when necessary.

Vscode-only Integrations

Vscode apis can easily be exposed via hidden commands that aren't shown to the user. See ProjectComponent.ts for examples of some commands. Some new routes may need to be added to the server-client interface as well in SlangInterface.ts

In order to provide type safe API access, the activate() function should be changed to expose an API object that has both the server and client's routes.

There should be an api exposed to subscribe within this to changes to which filelist is set, as well as when updated slang compilations are available.

Slang Cpp Integrations

Similarly, it would be ideal to subscribe to a compilation and receive updates within in C++. The server should share a non-owning reference to the compilation over shared memory, which has yet to be implemented.

Other Integrations

One can look to the Surfer wcp work for implementing an editor-agnostic and implementation-language-agnostic integration over JsonRPC.