Zig for Nova

Zig language support – ZLS, LLDB, Tree-Sitter grammar

Requirements

• Zig installed and on PATH (or configured in extension preferences)
• ZLS* for language intelligence
• LLDB DAP* for debugging (discovered automatically via xcrun or PATH; install the Xcode Command Line Tools if absent: xcode-select --install)

* optional but recommended for full experience

Why

A personal project to learn Zig without leaving Nova and without giving up the comfort of language server and debugging features.

Features

Editing

• Syntax highlighting for .zig and .zon
• Code folding for blocks, declarations, and control-flow expressions
• Document symbols (outline, breadcrumbs, Go to Symbol)
• Diagnostics, completion, hover, go to definition, find references, select all references, formatting (all via ZLS)
• Inline compiler errors from zig build

Tasks

• Zig Package: build and run a Zig package in the Nova console
• Zig Package (macOS Terminal): build and run in the external Terminal app for interactive CLIs
• Zig Debug: build in Debug mode and launch under the debugger, with configurable console and stop-on-entry
• A clean action on every runnable template that removes .zig-cache, zig-cache, and zig-out

Debugging

• Breakpoint support in Zig source files
• LLDB-based debug adapter, auto-discovered via xcrun or PATH

Configuration

Global settings live under Nova Preferences > Extensions > Zig.
Per-workspace overrides live under Project Settings > Zig and take precedence.

Tooling

Paths to the zig, zls, and lldb-dap executables. Leave any blank to discover from PATH.

Language Server

• Enable or disable ZLS
• Allow ZLS to run its build/check on save
• Log ZLS traffic to the Extension Console (for troubleshooting)

Troubleshooting

A large part of the file turns red after one error

The parser may report a broad recovery range when it hits an incomplete expression (for example, MyError.), and Nova highlights that entire range. Fix the first syntax error shown and the overlay should narrow to the real error locations.

Development

The Tree-sitter parser is built from the vendored grammar snapshot under vendor/tree-sitter-zig. The pinned upstream commit is recorded in vendor/tree-sitter-zig/VENDORING.md.

Rebuild the parser dylib:

./Scripts/build-parser.sh

Bump the vendored snapshot (and rebuild):

./Scripts/update-parser.sh           # upstream HEAD
./Scripts/update-parser.sh <ref>     # specific tag, branch, or SHA

Validate the extension bundle:

/Applications/Nova.app/Contents/SharedSupport/nova extension validate .

Attributions

The Zig logo is the work of the Zig Software Foundation and is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The zig-debug@2x.png is a derivative of the original logo, improving pixel alignment at 32px size.

The Tree-sitter grammar for Zig is sourced from github.com/tree-sitter-grammars/tree-sitter-zig.

Changelog

0.1.4 — 2026-05-07

• Initial release: syntax highlighting, ZLS integration, task templates, and LLDB debugging.

BSD 2-Clause License

Copyright 2026 David Czihak

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification,
are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
   this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
   this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
   and / or other materials provided with the distribution.

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