Standalone Installation

In addition to the VS Code extension, you can install the standalone tool to use the LSP directly with other editors (e.g., vim, neovim, and emacs) or in CI/CD. To do this, install from npm, install from Homebrew (macOS, Apple Silicon), download a release binary, or build from source.

npm

npm install -g @jbearak/sight
sight --help

The npm package installs the sight command. Configure LSP clients to run sight --stdio.

Homebrew (macOS, Apple Silicon)

brew install jbearak/sight/sight
sight --help

Installs the prebuilt sight CLI from the jbearak/sight tap. Apple Silicon macOS only. Configure LSP clients to run sight --stdio.

Release Binary

Download the appropriate sight-* binary from the GitHub releases page, place it on your PATH, and make it executable on Unix-like systems.

On macOS or Linux:

mkdir -p ~/bin
downloaded_binary=sight-linux-x64  # replace with your downloaded binary
case "$downloaded_binary" in
  sight-darwin-arm64|sight-linux-x64|sight-linux-arm64) ;;
  *)
    echo "Set downloaded_binary to a macOS/Linux binary, not a .vsix or JS bundle"
    exit 1
    ;;
esac
test -f "$downloaded_binary" || {
  echo "$downloaded_binary not found in the current directory"
  exit 1
}
test ! -e ~/bin/sight || {
  echo "~/bin/sight already exists; remove it first if it is safe to replace"
  exit 1
}
install -m 755 "$downloaded_binary" ~/bin/sight
chmod +x ~/bin/sight
sight --help

On Windows PowerShell:

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force "$HOME\bin" | Out-Null
$downloadedBinary = "sight-windows-x64.exe"  # or sight-windows-arm64.exe
if (!(Test-Path $downloadedBinary)) {
    throw "$downloadedBinary not found in the current directory"
}
if (Test-Path "$HOME\bin\sight.exe") {
    throw "$HOME\bin\sight.exe already exists; remove it first if safe"
}
Copy-Item $downloadedBinary "$HOME\bin\sight.exe"
& "$HOME\bin\sight.exe" --help

If sight is not found after this, add %USERPROFILE%\bin to your user Path.

Existing editor configs that still call sight-language-server should be updated to sight --stdio.

After installation, the sight command should be available globally. Use it with:

• Other LSP clients: Configure to run sight --stdio
• AI agents: See Editor Integrations
• Manual testing: Run sight --help to verify installation

Build from Source

If you're building from source, the scripts/setup.sh script handles everything:

./scripts/setup.sh

This will:

1. Install dependencies (bun install)
2. Build and package the VSIX
3. Install the extension to all detected editors (VS Code, Kiro, Cursor, etc.)
4. Identify conflicting syntax highlighting extensions (stata-enhanced)
5. Build and install the standalone binary to ~/bin

Note: Ensure ~/bin is on your PATH so that sight is discoverable. If it isn't, add export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH" to your shell profile (e.g., ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc). If setup.sh identifies conflicting syntax highlighting extensions, it will ask you what to do (disable/uninstall/do nothing).

Requires Bun (brew install bun or see https://bun.sh).

CLI Options

sight [options]

Option	Description
--stdio	Use stdio transport (default)
--node-ipc	Use Node IPC transport (for VS Code)
--quiet	Suppress startup messages
--help	Show help
--version	Show version