---
title: "IDE and LSP"
sidebarTitle: "IDE & LSP"
description: "The built-in editor, language servers, and how agents query them"
---
Desk includes a VS Code-like local editing surface built around Monaco. It is
designed to sit beside the agent fleet so the operator can inspect, edit, and
verify code without leaving the mission-control workspace — and so managed
agents can query the same language intelligence through a structured tool
interface.
## File explorer
The explorer provides root switching (typed path, home, or configured
shortcuts), lazy folder expansion, hidden-file visibility, drag-and-drop
moves, live filesystem updates, and full file operations: create, rename,
move, duplicate, copy/paste (with a clipboard shared with notes), and delete.
Path resolution is root-fenced server-side so the explorer can never escape
its root.
When language servers are running, file operations become **transactional
previews**: renaming a file first asks the language server what references it
would update, shows the affected files and any create/rename/delete side
effects in a dialog, and applies everything server-side as one unit — with a
dirty-file block before apply and rollback on failure. Without a relevant
server the operation is a plain filesystem op.
The explorer is also **git-aware**: files carry VS Code-style status badges
and tints, ancestor directories show change dots, and repository roots grow a
branch chip with ahead/behind arrows and the change count. The file context
menu includes stage/unstage, discard (confirmed), open diff, per-file history,
and copy GitHub URL.
## Monaco editor
Files open in Monaco tabs with syntax highlighting, multi-cursor editing,
minimap, tab restoration across reloads, and drag-reorderable tabs with
close/close-others/close-all. Saving is mtime-guarded: if the file changed on
disk under you, a conflict banner offers reload or keep-mine instead of
silently overwriting. Files over 2 MB and binary files open read-only.
Autosave has three modes — off, after-delay (configurable), and
on-focus-change — and is strictly weaker than manual save: it never writes
over a conflict, a deleted file, or a read-only view.
A git gutter shows added/modified/deleted line bars against HEAD, refreshed on
save, filesystem events, and any git action. The status bar carries the file
path (click to copy), save/conflict state, language, cursor position, branch
chip, and problem counts.
`Ctrl+P` opens quick-open — fuzzy filename search with per-root recent files —
and the search panel covers workspace-wide filename and content search
(ripgrep-backed), opening results at the matching line.
Non-text files open in viewers: images with zoom, PDFs, and markdown with
live-preview rendering — GitHub-flavored tables, KaTeX math, Mermaid
diagrams, and highlighted code. Tabs toggle between source and rendered
views.
## Problems panel
A collapsible bottom panel aggregates diagnostics for the files you have open
(never a global sweep of the whole workspace), grouped per file with severity
counts in the status bar. Clicking a problem jumps to its location.
## Language servers
LSP support is **off by default**; enable it in Settings → Language servers or
with `settings.lsp.enabled: true` in the manifest. Once enabled, Desk detects
the languages present under the editor root and starts matching servers on
demand; the per-language toggle in settings is a denylist — detection is
authoritative, you can only subtract from it.
Built-in server integrations:
- **TypeScript / JavaScript** — `typescript-language-server` (bundled)
- **Python** — Pyright (bundled)
- **Rust** — `rust-analyzer`, downloaded automatically at a pinned release
with SHA-256 verification and cached under `~/.cache/desk/lsp`
Additional or replacement servers can be declared in the manifest's
`settings.lsp.serverCommands`. Sessions are warmed at server start for the
configured root, so the first file you open usually finds its server already
indexed. The editor status bar tracks the lifecycle: warming, indexing (with
progress), ready, degraded (falling back to Monaco's built-ins), restarting,
or stopped. Crashed servers restart under a bounded supervisor rather than
flapping forever.
Editor features are capability-gated per server: diagnostics (push and pull),
completions, hover, go to definition/type/implementation/references, document
symbols and highlights, rename, formatting (document, range, and on-type),
code actions, code lens, signature help, folding, selection ranges, inlay
hints, semantic tokens, document links, and colors. Monaco's built-in
TypeScript diagnostics are disabled while a real server owns the language, so
you never see duplicate or contradictory squiggles. Burst-prone requests are
scheduled adaptively so a slow server never floods.
## MCP surface for agents
Managed Claude Code, Codex, and Qwen sessions can receive the same language
intelligence through `desk-lsp-mcp`, Desk's MCP server (enabled by
`settings.lsp.agents.enabled`). It exposes 18 read-only tools:
`lsp_hover`, `lsp_definition`, `lsp_references`, `lsp_type_definition`,
`lsp_implementation`, `lsp_declaration`, `lsp_document_symbols`,
`lsp_document_highlights`, `lsp_completion`, `lsp_signature_help`,
`lsp_code_actions`, `lsp_format`, `lsp_prepare_rename`, `lsp_rename`,
`lsp_folding_ranges`, `lsp_selection_ranges`, `lsp_semantic_tokens`, and
`lsp_diagnostics`.
The surface is deliberately data-only: `lsp_rename` returns the workspace
edit as data without applying it, and code actions are stripped of executable
commands. Each agent session gets its own bearer token bound to its working
directory — requests outside that root are rejected, responses are redacted
of environment and configuration details, and per-session request caps keep
one agent from starving the server. Agents share the same language-server
processes as the editor, so both always see one consistent view per project.
## Editor and terminal integration
The editor is connected to the rest of Desk:
- channel file links open in the editor, deriving and switching roots when
needed
- file paths in terminal and native agent output are clickable and open in
the editor too (relative paths resolve against the folder the session was
launched in; `path:line:col` lands on that position)
- the explorer's context menu downloads the selection: one file as itself,
several files or a folder as a `.zip`
- git diffs open as Monaco diff tabs in the source-control subsystem, and
"reveal in explorer" navigates back
- terminal selections become notes via the right-click menu
- the manifest (`desk.yml`) opens directly from the header's config button