Why EmmyLua Analyzer Rust?

• Fast — Incremental analysis powered by Rust; handles large codebases with ease
• Complete — Supports Lua 5.1 – 5.5 and LuaJIT, with EmmyLua & Luacats annotations
• Universal — Standard LSP protocol works with VS Code, Neovim, IntelliJ, and any LSP-compatible editor
• All-in-one — Language server, code formatter, static analyzer, and doc generator in a single toolchain

Components

Quick Start

Install

# Via Cargo
cargo install emmylua_ls          # Language server
cargo install emmylua_formatter   # Code formatter (binary: luafmt)
cargo install emmylua_check       # Static analyzer / linter
cargo install emmylua_doc_cli     # Documentation generator

Or download pre-built binaries from the Releases page.

Editor Setup

Before connecting your editor:

1. Install emmylua_ls and make sure it is available in PATH, or use an absolute binary path in your LSP client.
2. Add a project config file such as .emmyrc.json, .luarc.json, or .emmyrc.lua.
3. Restart the language server after changing global editor or workspace configuration.

See the Configuration Guide for all supported options.

vim.lsp.config("emmylua_ls", {
	cmd = { "emmylua_ls" },
	filetypes = { "lua" },
	root_markers = { ".emmyrc.json", ".luarc.json", ".git" },
})

vim.lsp.enable("emmylua_ls")

{
	"command": "emmylua_ls",
	"args": []
}

emmylua_ls -c tcp --ip 127.0.0.1 --port 5007

Features

Language Support

LSP Capabilities

In practice, this gives you a full day-to-day Lua editing workflow: symbol navigation, annotation-aware type feedback, project-wide references, incremental diagnostics, and formatting support in editors that expose standard LSP features.

Code Quality

• Static analysis with 50+ diagnostic rules
• Code formatting and style enforcement
• EmmyLua / Luacats annotation support

Usage

Language Server

# Default stdio mode
emmylua_ls

# TCP mode for remote debugging
emmylua_ls -c tcp --port 5007 --log-level debug --log-path ./logs

# Specify editor for editor-specific optimizations
emmylua_ls --editor intellij

Code Formatter

luafmt src --write                          # Format and write files in src
luafmt . --check --exclude "vendor/**"      # Verify formatting (git-diff style output)
luafmt --stdin < script.lua                 # Read from stdin
luafmt --dump-default-config                # Print the default configuration

Main options: --write, --check, --list-different, --config <FILE>, --include / --exclude glob filters, --level <Lua51|Lua52|Lua53|Lua54|Lua55|LuaJIT>, --color, --diff-style <marker|git>.

See the Formatter Guide for behavior, options, and profiles.

Static Analyzer

emmylua_check .                              # Analyze the current directory
emmylua_check ./src -c ./config/.emmyrc.json # Use a specific config file
emmylua_check . -i "vender/**,test/**"       # Ignore files/directories
emmylua_check . --severity warn              # Only show warnings and above
emmylua_check . -f json --output ./diag.json # Output diagnostics as JSON
emmylua_check . -f sarif                     # Output diagnostics as SARIF
emmylua_check . -f github                    # GitHub Actions inline annotations

Documentation Generator

emmylua_doc_cli ./src -o ./docs                     # Generate HTML docs from ./src
emmylua_doc_cli . -f markdown -o ./docs             # Generate Markdown docs
emmylua_doc_cli . -f json -o ./api.json             # Generate a JSON AST
emmylua_doc_cli . -o ./docs --site-name "My Project"
emmylua_doc_cli . -o ./docs --exclude "third_party/**,test/**"

Configuration

The project reads configuration from the workspace root, in order of preference:

Example .emmyrc.json:

{
  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/EmmyLuaLs/emmylua-analyzer-rust/refs/heads/main/crates/emmylua_code_analysis/resources/schema.json",
  "runtime": {
    "version": "LuaLatest"
  },
  "workspace": {
    "workspaceRoots": ["./src"]
  },
  "diagnostics": {
    "disable": ["undefined-global"]
  }
}

See the Configuration Guide for all supported options.

Documentation

• Features Guide — Comprehensive feature documentation
• Configuration — Advanced configuration options
• Formatter Guide — Formatter behavior, options, and usage guide
• Annotations Reference — Detailed annotation documentation
• External Formatter Integration — Using external formatters

Development

Build from Source

Requires a recent stable Rust toolchain (Rust Edition 2024).

git clone https://github.com/EmmyLuaLs/emmylua-analyzer-rust.git
cd emmylua-analyzer-rust

cargo build --release              # Build everything
cargo build --release -p emmylua_ls   # Build only the language server

Test

cargo test                      # Run all tests
cargo test -p emmylua_parser    # Run parser tests only

Contributing

We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

License

MIT