# Editor and shell setup

Enable shell completion and the Ptah language server, and check that each one works.

Source: https://docs.ptah.run/v0.8.1/extend/editor-and-shell/

Both are optional and both are quick. Neither changes what Ptah does; they
change how much you have to remember while using it. The Go-only scope below is
the language server's, not Ptah's -- every other source works the same from a
plain terminal, and [Work with a source](../../schema/work-with-a-source/) is
the source-neutral path.

## Shell completion

`ptah completion` generates a script for `bash`, `zsh`, `fish` or
`powershell`:

```bash
ptah completion zsh > "${fpath[1]}/_ptah"
```

The exact line differs by shell and platform, and the binary prints the one for
yours rather than this page guessing: `ptah completion zsh --help` gives the
current-session form, the every-session form, and the Homebrew path on macOS.
Read it there, because it moves with the shell rather than with Ptah.

Start a new shell afterwards. To check it took:

```bash
ptah mig<TAB>
```

Completion should offer `migrations`. If nothing happens, the script was
written somewhere the shell does not read, and the shell's own completion
system has to be enabled first -- `ptah completion zsh --help` says how for
zsh.

## The language server

`ptah-ls` serves hover documentation, attribute completion and diagnostics for
`//ptah:` annotations in Go source, from the same directive metadata as the
[annotation reference](../../reference/go-annotations/). Build it:

```bash
go build -o bin/ptah-ls ./cmd/ptah-ls
```

It speaks the Language Server Protocol over stdio and takes no arguments in
serve mode, so any LSP-capable editor can run it directly. For Visual Studio
Code, the extension in
[`editors/vscode`](https://github.com/stokaro/ptah/tree/master/editors/vscode)
starts it for Go files; point `ptah.languageServer.path` at the binary you
built.

To check it is running, open a Go file with an annotated struct and:

- hover a directive such as `//ptah:schema:index` -- its documentation appears;
- type `//ptah:schema:index ` and ask for completion -- the attribute names are
  offered;
- misspell an attribute -- a diagnostic marks it, which is the same rejection
  the parser makes at build time.

If all three are silent the editor is not starting the binary; if only the
diagnostic is missing the file is probably not part of a package the server
resolved.

### What it is not

A language server for SQL, HCL, YAML or DBML schema files. It reads `//ptah:`
annotations in Go source and nothing else. Those formats are edited with
whatever your editor already does for them, and
[`ptah schema validate`](../../schema/validate-and-format/) is the check that
replaces a language server for them.

## Next steps

- [Go annotations](../../reference/go-annotations/) is the directive reference
  the server serves.
- [Install Ptah](../../start/install/) covers the binaries themselves.