Pony

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.