Pony Zed Extension

Pony language support for the Zed editor.

About Pony

Pony is an open-source, object-oriented, actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language. It features:

• Memory safety without garbage collection using reference capabilities
• Data-race freedom guaranteed at compile time
• Actor-based concurrency for high performance
• Type safety with static typing
• Pattern matching and modern functional programming features

Features

This extension provides Pony language support for Zed, including:

• Syntax highlighting - Full syntax highlighting for Pony language constructs
• Auto-indentation - Smart indentation based on code structure
• Code navigation - Outline panel and breadcrumbs for quick navigation
• Bracket matching - Syntax-aware bracket pairing and rainbow brackets
• Vim text objects - Text objects for functions, classes, and comments (vim mode)
• Corral tasks - Built-in tasks for fetching dependencies and building projects
• Language Server Protocol (LSP) integration with the pony-lsp language server

Note

The Pony language server is still in early development. Some features are not yet implemented in the server itself.

Installation

Prerequisites

To enable LSP features, install pony-lsp. On macOS and Linux one option is via Homebrew:

brew install ponyc

Alternitively, use ponyup, or build from source via the ponyc Git repository.

From Zed Extensions

Install the release directly from the Zed extensions panel:

1. Open Zed
2. Press cmd-shift-x (macOS) or ctrl-shift-x (Linux/Windows)
3. Search for "Pony"
4. Click Install

Development Installation

To test this extension during development:

1. Open Zed
2. Navigate to the Extensions panel
3. Click "Install Dev Extension"
4. Select this repository directory

Configuration

The extension exposes the following settings under lsp.pony-lsp.settings in your Zed settings.json:

• defines (optional) - A list of compile-time definitions.
• executable (optional) - Path to the pony-lsp binary. If not set, Zed will search for pony-lsp on your system PATH.
• ponypath (optional) - A list of additional directories to search for Pony packages.

Configuring the LSP Server

1. Open Zed settings: cmd-, (macOS) or ctrl-, (Linux/Windows)
2. Add the following configuration:

{
  "lsp": {
    "pony-lsp": {
      "settings": {
        "executable": "/path/to/pony-lsp",
        "ponypath": [
          "/path/to/project-a/packages",
          "/path/to/project-b/packages"
        ],
        "defines": [
          "MY_DEFINE_ONE",
          "MY_DEFINE_TWO"
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Note

All options are optional! For example, if pony-lsp is already on your PATH, you can omit the executable setting.

Usage

Corral Tasks

The extension provides built-in tasks for Corral (Pony's package manager):

• corral fetch - Download dependencies defined in corral.json
• corral run -- ponyc - Build your project using Corral's package paths

To run a task:

1. Open the command palette: cmd-shift-P (macOS) or ctrl-shift-P (Linux/Windows)
2. Type "task" and select "task: spawn"
3. Choose a corral task from the list

Development

Prerequisites

• Zed editor
• Rust (required for building the extension)
• pony-lsp (optional, enables LSP features)

Building

The extension includes Rust code for LSP integration and must be compiled:

cargo build --release

The tree-sitter-pony grammar is automatically fetched and compiled by Zed when you install the extension.

Project Structure

pony-zed-extension/
├── Cargo.toml          # Rust project manifest
├── extension.toml      # Extension metadata and LSP registration
├── src/
│   └── pony.rs         # LSP integration code
├── languages/          # Language definitions
│   └── pony/
│       ├── config.toml      # Language configuration
│       ├── highlights.scm   # Syntax highlighting rules
│       ├── indents.scm      # Auto-indentation rules
│       ├── outline.scm      # Code navigation and outline
│       ├── brackets.scm     # Bracket matching rules
│       ├── textobjects.scm  # Vim text object definitions
│       └── tasks.json       # Corral build tasks
├── LICENSE
└── README.md

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit issues or pull requests.

Troubleshooting

"pony-lsp not found on PATH"

If you see this error when opening a .pony file:

1. Verify installation: which pony-lsp
2. Ensure the binary is in your PATH
3. Restart Zed after modifying PATH
4. Check Zed log for details: cmd-shift-P → "zed: open log"

LSP compilation errors or "go to definition" not working

If the LSP server is running but features don't work:

1. Check the LSP logs: cmd-shift-P → "zed: open log"
2. Ensure your project has a corral.json file listing local packages

LSP server not starting

1. Verify pony-lsp is installed and on PATH
2. Check Zed log for pony-lsp errors
3. Ensure you're using pony-lsp v0.61.0 or later

Extension not loading

1. Check that Rust code compiles: cargo build --release
2. Reload extensions in Zed: cmd-shift-P → "zed: reload extensions"
3. Check Zed log for extension errors

Resources

• Zed Extension Documentation
• Pony Language Server
• Pony Language Tutorial
• Pony Language Website

License

This project is licensed under the 2-Clause BSD License. See the LICENSE file for details.