Reqnroll.IdeSupport

LSP-based IDE support for Reqnroll, the open-source Gherkin/BDD test framework for .NET. One shared LSP server drives Gherkin syntax highlighting, diagnostics, navigation, completions, formatting, and refactoring across multiple IDEs, replacing the legacy monolithic Reqnroll.VisualStudio VS extension with a design that works the same way in Visual Studio, VS Code, and (planned) Rider.

Status: Preview / active development. The Visual Studio and VS Code extensions are functional and cover most of the planned feature set; see Open Questions & Risk Register for what's still unresolved and the Issues tab for tracked defects and to-dos. Not yet promoted as the recommended replacement for the legacy extension — see Overview §5 for the promotion criteria.

Why this exists

The legacy Reqnroll.VisualStudio extension is a single VS-SDK codebase with no path to VS Code or Rider. This project extracts the Gherkin-editing intelligence (parsing, diagnostics, step matching, navigation, formatting) into a standalone Language Server Protocol server, so each IDE only needs a thin client. See docs/LSP-IDE-Support-Overview.md for the full goals, non-goals, and phased roadmap.

Repository layout

src/
  Core/
    Reqnroll.IdeSupport.Common                    ← shared config/logging/analytics contracts
    Reqnroll.IdeSupport.ReqnrollConnector.Models   ← DTOs shared with the out-of-proc connector
  LSP/
    Reqnroll.IdeSupport.LSP.Core                   ← Gherkin parser, binding registry, match cache (netstandard2.0)
    Reqnroll.IdeSupport.LSP.Server                 ← the LSP server itself (OmniSharp.Extensions.LanguageServer host)
    Reqnroll.IdeSupport.LSP.Connector              ← out-of-process reflection-based binding discovery, per-TFM
  VisualStudio/
    Reqnroll.IdeSupport.VisualStudio.Extension     ← VS.Extensibility LSP client (VSIX)
    Reqnroll.IdeSupport.VisualStudio.VSSDKIntegration ← MEF classifications, analytics, VSSDK fallback
    Reqnroll.IdeSupport.VisualStudio.Wizards*      ← New Project / New Item wizards, welcome dialog
    Reqnroll.IdeSupport.VisualStudio.ItemTemplates,
    Reqnroll.IdeSupport.VisualStudio.ProjectTemplate ← VSIX template packaging
  VSCode/                                          ← TypeScript VS Code extension (npm project)

tests/            ← unit tests, integration specs, and BDD spec projects mirroring src/
docs/             ← design docs (see below)

Each subproject's own README/CONTRIBUTING/XML doc comments explain its internals in more detail; the Architecture reference is the canonical map of how everything fits together.

Design documentation

Document	Read it for…
Overview	Scope, goals/non-goals, high-level architecture diagram, phased roadmap, release/migration strategy
Architecture & Implementation Reference	Module design, server internals (workspace model, membership index, pipeline), per-IDE client details, cross-cutting concerns
Feature Designs	Per-feature (F1–F20) design, sequence diagrams, as-built notes
Open Questions & Risk Register	Active open questions and risks — check here before assuming something is decided

docs/Archive/ holds superseded or fully-implemented design/plan documents kept for historical reference — each doc's own status banner says whether it's active or archived-and-why.

Building

There's no single top-level build for every project in this repo (the VS extension is net481/VSSDK, the LSP server is net10.0 cross-platform, and the VS Code extension is a separate npm project) — build the piece you're working on:

LSP Server (net10.0, cross-platform):

dotnet build src/LSP/Reqnroll.IdeSupport.LSP.Server/Reqnroll.IdeSupport.LSP.Server.csproj

Visual Studio Extension (net481, requires Visual Studio + the Extensibility/VSSDK workloads):

dotnet build src/VisualStudio/Reqnroll.IdeSupport.VisualStudio.Extension/Reqnroll.IdeSupport.VisualStudio.Extension.csproj

Building the Extension project also publishes the LSP server self-contained (win-x64) into the VSIX under LSPServer/ — rebuild the Extension after any server change to pick it up.

VS Code Extension (TypeScript):

cd src/VSCode
npm ci
npm run build:server   # publishes the LSP server for your host platform
npm run compile

The .NET projects can also be opened as one workspace via the solution file Reqnroll.IdeSupport.slnx in an IDE that supports the .slnx format (Visual Studio 2022 17.13+, VS Code with the C# Dev Kit).

Server logging and trace verbosity

The LSP server accepts three independent verbosity flags — --log-level (its own file logging), --protocol-log-level (OmniSharp's internal diagnostics), and --trace (the LSP $/logTrace protocol trace) — each defaulting to a quiet level when omitted. Each IDE's glue component sets its own defaults for these (chattier in DEBUG builds); see src/LSP/CONTRIBUTING.md for the full flag reference and src/VisualStudio/CONTRIBUTING.md / src/VSCode/CONTRIBUTING.md for how each client wires them up.

See CONTRIBUTING.md and the area-specific contributor guides (LSP Server, Visual Studio extension, VS Code extension) for full development workflows, debugging, and test instructions.

Testing

# LSP server unit tests
dotnet test tests/LSP/Reqnroll.IdeSupport.LSP.Server.Tests/Reqnroll.IdeSupport.LSP.Server.Tests.csproj

# LSP server integration specs (Reqnroll .feature BDD, server hosted in-process)
dotnet test tests/LSP/Reqnroll.IdeSupport.LSP.Server.Specs/Reqnroll.IdeSupport.LSP.Server.Specs.csproj

# VS extension client-side unit tests
dotnet test tests/VisualStudio/Reqnroll.VisualStudio.Tests/Reqnroll.VisualStudio.Tests.csproj

# VS Code extension tests (grammar + utility functions, no VS Code required)
cd tests/VSCode && npm ci && npm test

CI (.github/workflows/build-vscode-extension.yml) builds and packages the VS Code extension and publishes the LSP server for all supported runtimes (win-x64, linux-x64, osx-x64, osx-arm64) on every push to feat/vscode-extension-**/main and on pull requests touching src/LSP/ or src/VSCode/.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

BSD 3-Clause.