Microsoft Launches a Markdown Language Server

Microsoft is releasing Markdown Language Server that makes Visual Studio Code’s Markdown support available to other editors and tools.

“With this Markdown Language Server, we’re making most of VS Code’s built-in Markdown language tooling—everything from document outlines to smart folding to path completions—available to other editors and tools,” Microsoft’s Matt Bierner writes. “Our goal is to push Markdown tooling forward with the type of smarts more often associated with programming languages.”

Microsoft’s Markdown Language Server effort consists of two new open source libraries, the Markdown Language Service, which is a TypeScript library that provides tools for working with Markdown, and the Markdown Language Server, which is a language server for Markdown built using the language service. According to Microsoft, a language server provides language-specific smarts and communicates with development tools over a protocol, providing language features like auto complete, go to definition, and so on.

Both libraries are currently being used by Visual Studio Code version 1.70 or higher, so Microsoft is already using it publicly. And aside from all the expected syntax support, the server now supports numerous tools for Markdown, including Document outlines, Workspace symbols, Document links, Smart folding, Smart selection, Completions, Rename, Find All References, Go to Definition, and d (experimentally) Diagnostics for broken links and updating of links on file moves and renames.

You can learn more on GitHub.