julIDE

A modern, fully-featured IDE for the Julia programming language, built with Tauri 2, React, TypeScript, and Rust.

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Credits

@ Rakesh - conributed multiple bug fixs and featue suggestions 🎉

@ RockyBeast - contributed the new julIDE icons 🎉

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Features

Code Editing

• Monaco Editor with full Julia syntax highlighting via a custom Monarch tokenizer
• 25+ Julia snippets — function, struct, try/catch, @testset, comprehensions, macros, and more
• Tabbed multi-file editing with dirty indicators and auto-save
• Split editor — side-by-side editing with a resizable divider
• Breadcrumb navigation showing the file path below the tab bar
• Find & Replace (Cmd/Ctrl+F, Cmd/Ctrl+H) via Monaco's built-in widget
• Configurable font size, font family, tab size, word wrap, and minimap
• LaTeX to Unicode — type \alpha + Tab to insert α (based on Julia's LaTeX symbols table)

Language Intelligence (LSP)

• Powered by Fatou — a Julia language server, formatter, and linter written in Rust, built into julIDE and used by default
• Autocompletion, hover documentation, go-to-definition, find references
• Signature help with parameter info
• Real-time diagnostics (errors and warnings) shown inline and in the Problems panel
• Error lens — inline diagnostic messages displayed at the end of each line
• Semantic tokens — rich semantic highlighting beyond syntax-level tokenization
• Workspace and document symbol search
• Formatting — format document, format selection, and optional format-on-save
• Workspace linting — check every .jl file in the project, not just the open ones
• Swappable backends — LanguageServer.jl and JETLS.jl remain selectable in Settings

Language server backends

Fatou is vendored as a Rust library and runs inside julIDE's own process, over an in-memory channel rather than a pipe. There is nothing to install, no subprocess to spawn, no PATH lookup, and no first-run precompilation — which also removes the class of connection failures that made an external server flaky, particularly on Windows.

The trade-off is real and worth knowing: Fatou never runs Julia. It analyses source text the way rust-analyzer analyses Rust, so it cannot infer types and does not know the symbols, methods, or docstrings of your installed dependencies. If you work in a package-heavy project and want completion for third-party symbols, switch to LanguageServer.jl under Settings → Julia → Language Server.

	Fatou (default)	LanguageServer.jl	JETLS.jl
Implementation	Rust, built in	Julia package	Julia package
Needs a Julia install	No	Yes	Yes (1.12+)
Startup cost	None	Precompile + index (mins)	Precompilation
Type-aware analysis	No	Best-effort	Yes — its core feature
Dependency symbols	No	Yes	Yes
Formatter	Built in	JuliaFormatter.jl / Runic	Runic / JuliaFormatter
Linter	Built in	Built in	Built in
Inlay hints	No	Yes	Yes
Maturity	Young	Mature, de-facto default	Experimental

Formatting is configurable under Settings → Julia (fatouLineWidth, fatouIndentWidth). A fatou.toml in the project takes precedence over those settings — that is Fatou's documented behaviour, so per-project config wins over the IDE's defaults.

Existing installs are migrated to Fatou once, on first launch after upgrading. If you pick a backend yourself afterwards, that choice is kept.

Julia Runtime

• Run scripts with rich output — inline images (PNG, JPEG, SVG), HTML, and plain text
• Interactive REPL via xterm.js with full PTY emulation
• Multi-terminal support — create, switch, and close multiple Julia REPL sessions
• Debugger integration via Debugger.jl — breakpoints, step-through, variable inspection, call stack
• Code cell execution — ## markers create code cells; Ctrl/Cmd+Enter runs the current cell with inline results
• Variable Explorer — workspace variable introspection via the REPL with DataFrame viewer support
• Revise.jl toggle for hot-reload development
• Pluto.jl reactive notebook support — open .jl files as Pluto notebooks in a native window
• Package Manager — add and remove packages via Pkg.jl directly from the UI
• Environment selector — switch between Julia project environments

File Management

• File explorer with tree view, create/rename/delete files and folders
• Drag-and-drop to move files between directories
• File watching — automatically detects external changes (git, other editors) and refreshes the tree
• Quick Open (Cmd/Ctrl+P) — fuzzy file finder across the entire workspace
• Global Search (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+F) — search across all files with regex, case-sensitivity, and glob filters

Git Integration

• Source control panel — view staged, unstaged, and untracked files
• Stage / unstage individual files or stage all at once
• Commit with a message directly from the UI
• Branch management — create, delete, and switch branches from the UI
• Push / Pull / Fetch — sync with remote repositories
• Merge — fast-forward and normal merges with conflict detection
• Stash — save, list, and pop stashed changes
• Ahead/Behind tracking — see how far your branch is from the upstream
• GitHub / GitLab / Gitea provider integration — browse PRs, issues, and CI status directly in the IDE
• Auth settings — store personal access tokens securely via the OS keychain
• Git blame — toggle inline blame annotations showing author, date, and commit summary per line
• Diff viewer — side-by-side diff view using Monaco DiffEditor
• Merge conflict resolution — detects conflict markers and provides "Accept Current", "Accept Incoming", and "Accept Both" action buttons inline
• Powered by libgit2 (via the git2 Rust crate) — no shell dependency for core operations

Workspace & UI

• Activity bar — switch between Explorer, Outline, Search, Variables, Source Control, and Dev Containers views
• Command palette (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P) with 35+ commands
• Settings panel (Cmd/Ctrl+,) — configure editor, terminal, and appearance
• Theme support — Dark and Light themes with full CSS variable system
• Welcome screen with recent projects on startup
• Resizable panels — sidebar and bottom panel with drag handles
• Outline panel — LSP-powered document symbol tree in the sidebar (functions, structs, modules, etc.)
• Variable Explorer — workspace variable introspection in the sidebar with DataFrame viewer
• Plot Pane — image gallery in the bottom panel for plot output (PNG, JPEG, SVG, HTML)
• Test Runner — runs Pkg.test() and parses @testset results in the bottom panel
• Status bar — Julia version, environment, git branch, LSP status, Revise/Pluto indicators

Dev Container Support

• Auto-detect devcontainer.json in the workspace and offer to build/start
• Docker and Podman runtime auto-detection (with manual override in settings)
• Build, start, stop, rebuild, and tear down dev containers from the UI or command palette
• Container panel in the sidebar — list running containers and images, start/stop/restart/remove
• Container logs panel — stream and view container output in real time
• Container terminal — open a PTY session inside the running container
• Run Julia inside the container — execute scripts in the dev container environment

Plugin System

• Plugin discovery — automatically scans ~/.julide/plugins/ for installed plugins
• Plugin manifest (plugin.json) — declare name, version, entry point, contributions, and permissions
• Plugin API — register commands, sidebar panels, bottom panels, status bar items, and toolbar buttons
• Permission model — plugins declare the capabilities they need and the user approves them once; every backend call is checked against that grant
• Plugin panel in the activity bar sidebar — view installed plugins, their status, and their granted permissions

Plugin permissions

Plugins are unsigned third-party code that runs inside julIDE, so they must declare what they need in plugin.json:

{
  "name": "my-plugin",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "displayName": "My Plugin",
  "main": "index.js",
  "permissions": ["workspace:read", "julia:run"]
}

On first load julIDE shows what the plugin is asking for and why it matters; declining means the plugin is not executed at all. Approvals are tied to a fingerprint of the manifest, so bumping the version, changing the entry point, or requesting one more permission all re-prompt rather than inheriting the old approval. Grants are revocable under Settings → Plugins.

The model fails closed: a call to a backend command whose permission was not granted is rejected before it reaches the backend, and commands absent from the catalog cannot be called at all.

Permission	Grants
workspace:read	Read files and list directories
workspace:write	Create, edit, rename, delete files
julia:run	Execute Julia code
julia:packages	Pkg.add / Pkg.rm
julia:configure	Change the Julia interpreter, scaffold projects
terminal	Open PTY sessions and write to them
debugger	Breakpoints, stepping, variable inspection
lsp	Send language server requests, lint the project
git:read	Status, diff, log, branches, blame, PRs, issues
git:write	Stage, commit, branch, merge, stash, push, pull
git:credentials	Read and modify stored access tokens
containers	Docker/Podman and dev container control
settings:read / settings:write	Read / modify julIDE preferences
pluto	Start and stop the Pluto notebook server
dialogs	Native file and folder pickers

workspace:write, julia:run, julia:configure, terminal, git:write, git:credentials, and containers are flagged high risk in the consent prompt — each can lead to arbitrary code execution, credential disclosure, or data loss.

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Prerequisites

• Julia 1.6 or later (download)
• Rust (latest stable) — install via rustup
• Bun — install (used as the package manager and script runner)
• System dependencies for Tauri — see Tauri prerequisites

Recommended Julia packages

Install these globally for the best experience:

using Pkg
Pkg.add("Revise")          # Hot-reload
Pkg.add("Debugger")        # Debugger integration
Pkg.add("Pluto")           # Reactive notebooks
Pkg.add("LanguageServer")  # Only if you switch off the built-in Fatou backend

Language support needs nothing installed — Fatou ships with julIDE.

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Installation

Download the latest build from the releases page.

Platform	Download	Notes
Linux	.AppImage	Recommended — supports in-app updates. chmod +x then run.
Linux	.deb / .rpm	Installs system-wide and registers .jl files. Updates via your package manager.
Windows	.msi or .exe
macOS	.dmg	Apple Silicon and Intel builds are published separately.

You also need Julia 1.6+ (download). julIDE does not bundle it. If Julia is not found on first launch, julIDE will offer to help you install or locate it.

Unsigned builds

julIDE is not yet code-signed, so your OS will warn you on first launch:

• Windows — SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC". Click More info → Run anyway.

• macOS — Gatekeeper reports the app "cannot be opened". Either right-click the app and choose Open, or run:

  xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/julide.app

• Linux — no warning; AppImages just need the executable bit.

This is expected for an unsigned application and is documented in SECURITY.md. Signing is planned.

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Getting Started

This section is for building julIDE from source. If you just want to use it, see Installation above.

Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/sinisterMage/JulIde.git
cd JulIde
bun install

Development

# Start the Tauri dev server (frontend + native window with hot reload)
bun run tauri dev

This starts Vite on localhost:1420 and opens the native Tauri window. Changes to both the React frontend and Rust backend are hot-reloaded.

Production Build

# Build the distributable application
bun run tauri build

The output is placed in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/. bundle.targets is set to "all", so each platform produces everything it can: .deb, .rpm, and .AppImage on Linux; .msi and .exe on Windows; .app and .dmg on macOS. A build only produces artifacts for the platform it runs on — the release workflow builds all four targets.

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Architecture

julIDE
├── src/                        # React + TypeScript frontend
│   ├── components/             # UI components
│   │   ├── ActivityBar/        # Sidebar view switcher
│   │   ├── CommandPalette/     # Cmd+Shift+P command search
│   │   ├── Debugger/           # Debug panel (variables, call stack)
│   │   ├── Editor/             # Monaco editor, tabs, breadcrumb, split view
│   │   ├── FileExplorer/       # File tree with drag-and-drop
│   │   ├── Container/           # Dev container management panel and logs
│   │   ├── Git/                # Source control panel, diff viewer
│   │   ├── Outline/            # LSP document symbol outline
│   │   ├── OutputPanel/        # Script output with MIME rendering
│   │   ├── PackageManager/     # Julia package management UI
│   │   ├── PlotPane/           # Plot output gallery
│   │   ├── Plugin/             # Plugin management panel
│   │   ├── QuickOpen/          # Fuzzy file finder (Cmd+P)
│   │   ├── SearchPanel/        # Global file search (Cmd+Shift+F)
│   │   ├── Settings/           # Preferences panel
│   │   ├── StatusBar/          # Bottom status indicators
│   │   ├── Terminal/           # Multi-terminal with xterm.js
│   │   ├── TestRunner/         # Test execution with result parsing
│   │   ├── Toolbar/            # Run, debug, Revise, Pluto buttons
│   │   ├── Variables/          # Variable explorer with DataFrame viewer
│   │   └── Welcome/            # Welcome screen with recent projects
│   ├── lsp/                    # LSP client and Monaco providers
│   ├── services/               # Keybinding service, plugin host, builtin contributions
│   ├── stores/                 # Zustand state management
│   ├── themes/                 # Theme definitions (dark + light)
│   ├── types/                  # TypeScript interfaces
│   └── App.tsx                 # Root layout component
│
├── src-tauri/                  # Rust backend (Tauri 2)
│   └── src/
│       ├── main.rs             # Entry point
│       ├── lib.rs              # Command registry and plugin setup
│       ├── julia.rs            # Julia discovery, execution, Pkg commands
│       ├── lsp.rs              # LSP bridge: in-process Fatou or a stdio child
│       ├── fatou_tools.rs      # Workspace-wide linting via Fatou's Rust API
│       ├── pty.rs              # PTY terminal management
│       ├── debugger.rs         # Debugger.jl integration
│       ├── fs.rs               # File system operations and dialogs
│       ├── git.rs              # Git operations via libgit2
│       ├── git_auth.rs         # PAT token storage via OS keychain (keyring)
│       ├── git_provider.rs     # Git provider trait and commands for PRs/issues/CI
│       ├── git_github.rs       # GitHub REST API provider implementation
│       ├── git_gitlab.rs       # GitLab REST API provider implementation
│       ├── git_gitea.rs        # Gitea REST API provider implementation
│       ├── container.rs        # Docker/Podman container and devcontainer management
│       ├── plugins.rs          # Plugin discovery and manifest loading
│       ├── search.rs           # Workspace-wide file search
│       ├── watcher.rs          # File change detection (notify crate)
│       ├── settings.rs         # User settings persistence
│       └── pluto.rs            # Pluto.jl notebook server
│
├── package.json                # Frontend dependencies (React, Monaco, xterm)
├── vite.config.ts              # Vite build configuration
├── tsconfig.json               # TypeScript configuration
└── src-tauri/Cargo.toml        # Rust dependencies (tauri, git2, tokio, etc.)

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Desktop framework	Tauri 2 (Rust)
Frontend	React 19, TypeScript, Vite
Code editor	Monaco Editor
Terminal	xterm.js with PTY
State management	Zustand with Immer middleware
Icons	Lucide React
Git operations	git2 (libgit2 bindings)
File watching	notify crate
File search	walkdir + regex crates
LSP	Fatou, linked in and driven over an in-process channel
Git provider API	reqwest (HTTP client for GitHub/GitLab/Gitea)
Token storage	keyring crate (OS keychain)
Container runtime	Docker / Podman CLI (auto-detected)

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P	Command Palette
Cmd/Ctrl+P	Quick Open (file finder)
Cmd/Ctrl+F	Find in file
Cmd/Ctrl+H	Find and replace
Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+F	Search across files
Cmd/Ctrl+S	Save file
Ctrl+`	Toggle terminal
Cmd/Ctrl+G	Go to Line
Ctrl/Cmd+Enter	Run code cell
Cmd/Ctrl+,	Open settings

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Configuration

Settings are stored in ~/.config/julide/settings.json (Linux), ~/Library/Application Support/julide/settings.json (macOS), or %APPDATA%/julide/settings.json (Windows).

Available settings:

Setting	Default	Description
fontSize	14	Editor font size
fontFamily	JetBrains Mono, ...	Editor font family
tabSize	4	Indentation width
minimapEnabled	true	Show minimap
wordWrap	off	Word wrap mode
autoSave	true	Auto-save on change
theme	julide-dark	Color theme (julide-dark or julide-light)
terminalFontSize	13	Terminal font size
containerRuntime	auto	Container runtime (auto, docker, or podman)
containerRemoteHost	""	Remote Docker/Podman host URL
containerAutoDetect	true	Auto-detect devcontainer.json on workspace open
displayForwarding	true	Forward X11/Wayland display into containers
gpuPassthrough	false	Pass GPU devices into containers
selinuxLabel	true	Apply SELinux labels to bind mounts
persistJuliaPackages	true	Persist Julia packages across container rebuilds
plutoPort	3000	Port for the Pluto.jl notebook server
juliaPath	""	Custom Julia binary path (overrides auto-detection)
lspBackend	fatou	Language server (fatou, languageserver, jetls)
fatouLineWidth	92	Target line length Fatou formats to
fatouIndentWidth	4	Spaces per indent level Fatou formats with
formatOnSave	false	Format through the language server on explicit save
startMaximized	true	Start the window maximized

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Julia Path Detection

julIDE automatically finds Julia using these strategies (in order):

1. juliaPath setting (if set via Settings or the command palette "Set Julia Executable Path")
2. $JULIA_PATH environment variable
3. Login shell which julia lookup
4. ~/.juliaup/bin/julia (juliaup default)
5. Common paths: /opt/homebrew/bin/julia, /usr/local/bin/julia, /usr/bin/julia
6. macOS /Applications/Julia*.app bundles

If Julia is not found, use the command palette (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P → "Set Julia Executable Path") to pick a custom binary, or set the JULIA_PATH environment variable.

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Updates

julIDE checks for new releases on startup and shows a banner when one is available.

What it can install depends on how you installed it. tauri-plugin-updater can only replace the running binary when that binary is a single self-contained file:

Install	In-app update
AppImage (Linux)	Yes — one click, then restart. Recommended download on Linux.
.deb / .rpm	No — these are owned by your package manager. julIDE still tells you a new version exists and links to the download page.
Windows .msi / .exe	Yes
macOS .app / .dmg	Yes

Run Check for Updates from the command palette (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P) to check manually.

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License

MIT -- Copyright 2026 Ofek Bickel