Neovim, Helix, and other editors

syntaqlite's language server works with any editor that supports LSP. Configure your editor to start syntaqlite lsp for SQL files to enable diagnostics and formatting.

1. Install syntaqlite

If you haven't already:

curl -sSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LalitMaganti/syntaqlite/main/tools/syntaqlite | python3 - install

mise use github:LalitMaganti/syntaqlite

pip install syntaqlite

brew install LalitMaganti/tap/syntaqlite

cargo install syntaqlite-cli

Verify it runs:

syntaqlite fmt -e "select 1"

2. Configure your editor

Neovim

Add this to your Neovim config (requires nvim-lspconfig):

vim.lsp.config('syntaqlite', {
  cmd = { 'syntaqlite', 'lsp' },
  filetypes = { 'sql' },
  root_markers = { 'syntaqlite.toml', '.git' },
})
vim.lsp.enable('syntaqlite')

After you open a .sql file, syntax errors should be underlined and your usual LSP format keybinding should format the file.

Helix

Add to ~/.config/helix/languages.toml:

[[language]]
name = "sql"
language-servers = ["syntaqlite"]

[language-server.syntaqlite]
command = "syntaqlite"
args = ["lsp"]

After restarting Helix, open a .sql file to check that diagnostics appear inline and that :format formats the buffer.

Other LSP clients

The pattern is the same for any editor: set the server command to syntaqlite lsp and associate it with SQL files. The server communicates over stdin/stdout using JSON-RPC.

3. Try it out

Create a file called test.sql:

SELEC id, name FROM users;

Open the file in your editor and check that SELEC has a syntax error diagnostic. Changing it to SELECT should remove the error.

4. Add schema validation

Without a schema, syntaqlite catches syntax errors and function misspellings. To also catch unknown tables and columns, add a syntaqlite.toml to your project root:

schema = ["schema.sql"]

Then create schema.sql with your table definitions:

CREATE TABLE users (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT, email TEXT);

Restart the language server (or reopen the editor). Now a query like SELECT nme FROM users will show a warning with a "did you mean 'name'?" suggestion.

See project setup for the full configuration reference.