Completion, Hover, Go-to-Definition

The VS Code extension provides IntelliSense features powered by the MDL language server (mxcli lsp --stdio).

Code Completion

Press Ctrl+Space or start typing to trigger context-aware completions:

Keyword Completion

At the start of a statement, the extension suggests top-level MDL keywords:

CREATE  SHOW  DESCRIBE  ALTER  DROP  GRANT  REVOKE  SEARCH  REFRESH  ...

After a keyword, context-appropriate follow-up keywords appear:

CREATE |
       ├── ENTITY
       ├── ASSOCIATION
       ├── ENUMERATION
       ├── MICROFLOW
       ├── PAGE
       ├── SNIPPET
       ├── MODULE
       ├── MODULE ROLE
       ├── USER ROLE
       └── WORKFLOW

Snippet Completion

Common patterns are offered as multi-line snippets. For example, typing entity and selecting the snippet inserts:

CREATE PERSISTENT ENTITY ${1:Module}.${2:EntityName} (
    ${3:Name}: ${4:String(200)}
);

Reference Completion

When the language server has a loaded project, qualified name references offer completions from the actual model:

• Entity names after FROM, TO, and in data source expressions
• Module names after IN and as the first part of qualified names
• Attribute names inside entity contexts
• Microflow names after CALL MICROFLOW

Hover

Hover over any Module.Name qualified reference to see its MDL definition in a tooltip. For example, hovering over Sales.Customer in:

RETRIEVE $c FROM Sales.Customer WHERE ...

Displays the entity definition:

CREATE PERSISTENT ENTITY Sales.Customer (
    Name: String(200) NOT NULL,
    Email: String(200),
    IsActive: Boolean DEFAULT true
);

Hover works for entities, microflows, pages, enumerations, associations, and snippets.

Go-to-Definition

Ctrl+Click (or F12) on a qualified reference opens the element’s MDL source as a virtual read-only document. The definition is generated on-the-fly by describing the element from the project.

For example, Ctrl+clicking Sales.ProcessOrder opens a virtual document showing the full microflow definition with all its activities, conditions, and flows.

This also works from the terminal: qualified names like MyModule.EntityName in mxcli output are rendered as clickable links that open the definition.

Document Symbols and Outline

The Outline panel (View > Outline) shows all MDL statements in the current file as a navigable tree:

├── CREATE ENTITY Sales.Customer
├── CREATE ENTITY Sales.Order
├── CREATE ASSOCIATION Sales.Order_Customer
├── CREATE MICROFLOW Sales.ProcessOrder
└── CREATE PAGE Sales.CustomerOverview

Click any entry to jump to that statement in the editor.

Folding

Statement blocks can be collapsed:

• CREATE MICROFLOW ... BEGIN ... END; – fold the microflow body
• CREATE PAGE ... { ... } – fold the widget tree
• IF ... THEN ... END IF; – fold conditional blocks
• LOOP ... BEGIN ... END LOOP; – fold loop bodies
• /** ... */ – fold documentation comments