Installing Helix Editor Language Servers

Helix Editor

I’ve been using Helix Editor as my daily driver for web development for most of this year and – while it has some outstanding issues¹ (what doesn’t?) – I’m really enjoying it.²

One of the issues that might trip new folks is that while it has Language Server Protocol (LSP) support, and while there are default Language Servers configured, installing Helix Editor doesn’t actually install those language servers.³

Another issue is that since many of the language servers are written in Node.js and installed as global modules, if you update your version of Node (e.g., using nvm.fish on fish shell), you will also have to reinstall your language servers.

Needless to say, this can get tedious so here’s a little script I hacked together today for myself to easily install (and reinstall) the Language Servers I use for web development (mostly HTML, JS, CSS, and Node.js with Kitten these days) in Helix Editor.

I’m sharing it below in case it helps anyone else. Please feel free to adapt and use it for yourself.

Usage

1. Copy the code into a file named, e.g., install-helix-language-servers

2. Make that file executable. e.g.:

   chmod +x install-helix-language-servers
   

3. Adapt it for your own needs (see notes) and enjoy!

Notes

• Only tested on Linux.
• Requires Node.js, Rust, Bash, wget, gunzip, and tar.

If you’re running this on Fedora Silverblue or other immutable Linux distribution, make sure you do so from a mutable container (e.g., via Toolbox or Distrobox) that has the Rust toolchain installed so that the Language Servers that are installed by Cargo (e.g., TOML) can be compiled properly.

Note: TOML Language Server requires latest Rust to compile. Tested to work on 1.65.0 (does not work on 1.60.0). See https://github.com/tamasfe/taplo/issues/349

If you’re on a non-Linux platform, please modify the script accordingly.

You can find installation instructions for all Language Servers supported by Helix Editor at: https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/wiki/How-to-install-the-default-language-servers

Code

#!/usr/bin/env bash

BINARY_HOME="${HOME}/.local/bin"
DATA_HOME="${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}"

echo "Installing Language Servers for Helix Editor:"

# Work in a throwaway temporary directory so as not to pollute the file system.
temporaryDirectory="/tmp/helix-editor-language-server-installer"
mkdir -p "${temporaryDirectory}"
pushd "${temporaryDirectory}"

# Bash
echo "  • Bash (bash-language-server)"
npm i -g bash-language-server

# HTML, JSON, JSON schema
echo "  • HTML, JSON, and JSON schema (vscode-langservers-extracted)"
npm i -g vscode-langservers-extracted

# JavaScript (via TypeScript)
echo "  • JavaScript (typescript, typescript-language-server)"
npm install -g typescript typescript-language-server

# Markdown (via ltex-ls. Note: this has excellent features like
# spelling and grammar check but is a ~269MB download).
echo "  • Markdown (ltex-ls)"
ltexLsVersion=15.2.0
ltexLsBinaryPath="${BINARY_HOME}/ltex-ls"
ltexLsBaseFileName="ltex-ls-${ltexLsVersion}"
ltexLsFileNameWithPlatform="${ltexLsBaseFileName}-linux-x64"
ltexLsAppDirectory="${DATA_HOME}/${ltexLsBaseFileName}"
rm "${ltexLsBinaryPath}"
rm -rf "${ltexLsAppDirectory}"
wget "https://github.com/valentjn/ltex-ls/releases/download/${ltexLsVersion}/${ltexLsFileNameWithPlatform}.tar.gz"
gunzip "${ltexLsFileNameWithPlatform}.tar.gz"
tar xf "${ltexLsFileNameWithPlatform}.tar"
mv "${ltexLsBaseFileName}" "${DATA_HOME}"
ln -s "${ltexLsAppDirectory}/bin/ltex-ls" "${ltexLsBinaryPath}" 

# TOML
cargo install taplo-cli --locked --features lsp

# Clean up.
popd
rm -rf "${temporaryDirectory}"

echo "Done."