Editor Setup

Badness ships a language server. Start it with:

badness lsp

The server uses the Language Server Protocol (LSP) over standard input and output (stdio). Point your editor’s LSP client at the badness binary with the lsp argument and associate it with LaTeX (.tex) and BibTeX (.bib) files.

See Language Server for capabilities and feature behavior.

See the Editor Configuration reference for shared settings, their precedence, TEXMF discovery, and PDF search.

Neovim

With the built-in vim.lsp client (Neovim 0.11+):

vim.lsp.config.badness = {
  cmd = { "badness", "lsp" },
  filetypes = { "tex", "latex", "plaintex", "bib" },
  root_markers = { "badness.toml", ".git" },
  init_options = { lineWidth = 80, indentWidth = 2 },
}
vim.lsp.enable("badness")

See the Editor Configuration reference for shared settings and their precedence. The init_options block is optional; omit it to use the defaults or a badness.toml.

VS Code

Install the Badness extension from the VS Code Marketplace or the Open VSX extension. It bundles a platform-specific badness binary and starts the language server automatically when you open a .tex file, so no separate CLI install is required.

Configure the extension through badness.* settings. By default, it uses the bundled binary (badness.executableStrategy: "bundled"). Set the strategy to environment to use badness from your PATH, or to path with badness.executablePath to select a specific binary. See the extension’s README for the full list of settings.

Using only some features

The formatter, linter, and language features share one server but can be turned off independently, so you can adopt just the parts you want:

• badness.formatting.enable—use Badness as a formatter.
• badness.diagnostics.enable—show Badness diagnostics (the linter).
• badness.languageFeatures.enable—hover, completion, navigation, symbols, rename, code actions, and the rest.

All three default to true. The extension controls these features on the client side, so the server keeps running and the changes take effect without a reinstall. For a formatter-only setup, turn off the other two:

{
  "badness.diagnostics.enable": false,
  "badness.languageFeatures.enable": false
}

Turning off badness.diagnostics.enable suppresses every diagnostic, including the parse errors that a [lint] selection in badness.toml cannot silence. Use badness.toml when you want to keep parse errors but disable specific lint rules across every editor and the CLI.

Using with LaTeX Workshop

Badness works alongside LaTeX Workshop. LaTeX Workshop handles building, PDF preview, and SyncTeX, while Badness handles formatting, linting, and navigation.

Formatting. The Badness extension registers itself as the default formatter for LaTeX files. LaTeX Workshop’s formatter integration is disabled by default (latex-workshop.formatting.latex is "none"). Leave it disabled so only one extension formats your LaTeX files. LaTeX Workshop ships a built-in BibTeX formatter, so select Badness explicitly for BibTeX files:

{
  "[bibtex]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "jolars.badness"
  }
}

Linting. LaTeX Workshop’s ChkTeX and lacheck integrations are disabled by default (latex-workshop.linting.chktex.enabled and latex-workshop.linting.lacheck.enabled). Leave them off to avoid overlapping diagnostics from those tools and Badness.

Completion. Both extensions contribute completion items, so you may see duplicate suggestions for commands, environments, or citations. This is harmless, but if it bothers you, the latex-workshop.intellisense.* settings let you turn off the overlapping parts on the LaTeX Workshop side.

Zed

Install LaTeX and Badness from Zed’s extensions view (zed: extensions in the command palette). The LaTeX extension supplies the LaTeX and BibTeX languages; Badness supplies the language server for both.

Badness uses a badness binary on your PATH when available and otherwise downloads a release for your platform. On NixOS, install the Nixpkgs package so the extension can use the native binary.

To use Badness for both languages and enable formatting on save, add this to Zed’s settings.json:

{
  "languages": {
    "LaTeX": {
      "language_servers": ["badness-language-server"],
      "formatter": "language_server",
      "format_on_save": "on"
    },
    "BibTeX": {
      "language_servers": ["badness-language-server"],
      "formatter": "language_server",
      "format_on_save": "on"
    }
  }
}

To retain Texlab alongside Badness for LaTeX files, list "texlab" after "badness-language-server" in the LaTeX settings.

Shared editor settings go under the server ID. For example, these formatting settings apply when the project has no badness.toml:

{
  "lsp": {
    "badness-language-server": {
      "settings": {
        "lineWidth": 100,
        "indentWidth": 2
      }
    }
  }
}

For a custom binary, set binary.path under lsp.badness-language-server. If you also set binary.arguments, use ["lsp"]: the arguments replace the default command line.

Other Editors

Any editor with an LSP client can run Badness. Configure it to use badness lsp over stdio for LaTeX documents. Consult your editor’s LSP client documentation for the exact configuration syntax.