"Life is all about sharing. If we are good at something, pass it on." - Mary Berry

Helix returns "No definition found" when going to a definition

2025-08-14

If you follow this blog regularly, you know that I’m so happy with the combo WezTerm (terminal emulator) and Helix (editor). Since I recently switched to a project that uses Java, I’m trying to configure Helix as my Java editor.

The default language server for Java is jdtls which can be installed easily on macOS by running:

brew install jdtls

hx --health java
Configured language servers:
  ✓ jdtls: /opt/homebrew/bin/jdtls
Configured debug adapter: None
Configured formatter: None
Tree-sitter parser: ✓
Highlight queries: ✓
Textobject queries: ✓
Indent queries: ✓
Tags queries: ✓
Rainbow queries: ✓

How to create snippets in Helix?

2023-07-31

Helix currently does not support snippets. However, there is a workaround to insert snippets using :insert-output to run a shell command. Still, this might not feel like the most natural way to work with snippets.

For instance, in GoLand, a similar feature called live templates allows you to type err and expand it into the following:

if err != nil {
  
}

I wonder if I can archieve the same functionality in Helix by creating a simple language server