x/tools/gopls: vscode 'sticky scroll' doesn't work for ginkgo test files unless there's only a single top-level entity

[mdbooth]

Go version

go version go1.24.4 linux/amd64

Output of go env in your module/workspace:

AR='ar'
CC='gcc'
CGO_CFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_CPPFLAGS=''
CGO_CXXFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_ENABLED='1'
CGO_FFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_LDFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CXX='g++'
GCCGO='gccgo'
GO111MODULE=''
GOAMD64='v1'
GOARCH='amd64'
GOAUTH='netrc'
GOBIN=''
GOCACHE='/home/mbooth/.cache/go-build'
GOCACHEPROG=''
GODEBUG=''
GOENV='/home/mbooth/.config/go/env'
GOEXE=''
GOEXPERIMENT=''
GOFIPS140='off'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       GOFLAGS=''
GOGCCFLAGS='-fPIC -m64 -pthread -Wl,--no-gc-sections -fmessage-length=0 -ffile-prefix-map=/tmp/go-build1384982302=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches'
GOHOSTARCH='amd64'
GOHOSTOS='linux'
GOINSECURE=''
GOMOD='/home/mbooth/src/openshift/cluster-capi-operator/go.mod'
GOMODCACHE='/home/mbooth/go/pkg/mod'
GONOPROXY=''
GONOSUMDB=''
GOOS='linux'
GOPATH='/home/mbooth/go'
GOPRIVATE=''
GOPROXY='https://proxy.golang.org,direct'
GOROOT='/home/mbooth/.go-distro/1.24.4'
GOSUMDB='sum.golang.org'
GOTELEMETRY='local'
GOTELEMETRYDIR='/home/mbooth/.config/go/telemetry'
GOTMPDIR=''
GOTOOLCHAIN='auto'
GOTOOLDIR='/home/mbooth/.go-distro/1.24.4/pkg/tool/linux_amd64'
GOVCS=''
GOVERSION='go1.24.4'
GOWORK='/home/mbooth/src/openshift/cluster-capi-operator/go.work'
PKG_CONFIG='pkg-config'

What did you do?

Unfortunately I don't understand the interactions between vscode and gopls, so the following will likely require translation before being actionable.

VS Code (Cursor in this screenshot, but it's the same thing) has a feature called 'sticky scroll' which retains lines leading to the current lexical scope at the top of the window when scrolling. It looks like this:

It is my understanding that the metadata required to do this is produced by gopls, but as noted I unfortunately can't confirm this or explain how.

Sticky scroll works in the following file. When the cursor is positioned on one of the fmt.Println()s the context shows:

• Describe...
  • Context...
    • It...

package main

import (
	"fmt"

	. "github.com/onsi/ginkgo/v2"
)

var _ = Describe("Top level", func() {
	Context("Some context", func() {
		It("Should do something", func() {
			fmt.Println("Hello, world!")
			fmt.Println("Hello, world!")
			fmt.Println("Hello, world!")
			fmt.Println("Hello, world!")
			fmt.Println("Hello, world!")
			fmt.Println("Hello, world!")
			fmt.Println("Hello, world!")
		})
	})
})

Sticky scroll does not work in this file. When the cursor is positioned on one of the foo() calls there is no context displayed in the editor window.

package main

import (
	"fmt"

	. "github.com/onsi/ginkgo/v2"
)

var _ = Describe("Top level", func() {
	Context("Some context", func() {
		It("Should do something", func() {
			foo()
			foo()
			foo()
			foo()
			foo()
			foo()
			foo()
		})
	})
})

func foo() {
	fmt.Println("Hello, world!")
}

What did you see happen?

Sticky scroll does not work: the lines leading to the current lexical scope are not displayed at the top of the IDE's editor window.

What did you expect to see?

Sticky scroll should work in my IDE when the file has more than one top-level element.

[gabyhelp]

Related Issues

• x/tools/gopls: hover stops working golang/go#64778 (closed)
• x/tools/gopls: file changes not reflected in results golang/go#35526 (closed)
• x/tools/gopls: improve documentation for working with template files golang/go#74759
• x/tools/gopls: go to definition breaks gopls golang/go#38503 (closed)
• x/tools/gopls: go to definition doesn't work in VSCode golang/go#32608 (closed)

_{(Emoji vote if this was helpful or unhelpful; more detailed feedback welcome in this discussion.)}

[adonovan]

@h9jiang Can you triage and identify which side the problem lies in? Thanks.

[h9jiang]

Thanks for reporting, @mdbooth

I did a quick look of this. I think this is feature vscode built on top of the LSP (information provided by the gopls). There are three options, the stick scroll will offer you different experience based on your choice. Let me quickly summarize:

Outline model default. This is inherit from the outline view, only the item available on the outline view will be sticky. So in this case, because var _ is an anonymous variable, so gopls decide this is not something that should be considered as part of textDocument/documentSymbol so when you scroll to this variable, nothing is sticky.

The other two model are not default model, indentation and folding. These two are more intuitive, folding is reported by gopls through the folding range, indentation is just indentation of previous lines.

So I think these two options should work for you. Most of the go developer should be using the auto-save and auto-format feature, so there shouldn't be a lot of difference between selecting indentation or folding range. I guess, folding range should normally have better experience since it's reported by gopls.

Please try this out and let me know if this is what you are looking for.

[h9jiang]

I'm sorry I think I misunderstand one of your statement. You were saying one of them is working and the other one is not. I have tried both of the code you pasted and they works in my vscode. See screenshot below

(this is using foldingProviderModel)

Is this the behavior what you are looking for?

[h9jiang]

That's interesting. I think I now understand the problem now.

why it's not working when you have more than one top level entity?

A better way to say it is, it's not working when you have at least one named top level symbol decl. if you have two top level symbols and they are all anonymous, it's still working.

Note: a named means a variable with a name. var _ = ... means it does not have a name.

why it's working when you have only one top level entity?

It's working because the top level entity is anonymous. When gopls report document symbols, gopls does not report unnamed symbols like var _ = .... So if all the symbols are anonymous, gopls return empty.

This triggers the behavior of stick scroll fall back mechanism. So sticky scroll fall back to the second option "Folding Provider". That's why you are able to see those context on top of the file.

I think the fix is apply the change to your vscode user setting.json "editor.stickyScroll.defaultModel": "foldingProviderModel",

Let me know if this works or not.

If you are also working on multiple different languages and don't want this configuration to apply to other languages like python or typescript, you can create a per-workspace configuration repo/.vscode/settings.json and write the configuration there. This is same as Preferences: Open Workspace Settings(JSON)

{
  "editor.stickyScroll.defaultModel": "foldingProviderModel",
}

[mdbooth]

I think the fix is apply the change to your vscode user setting.json "editor.stickyScroll.defaultModel": "foldingProviderModel",

Thanks @h9jiang, this resolves my problem.

I will leave this open in case you think there is anything here worthy of a change, but if not I'm happy for you to close it. Thanks again!

[h9jiang]

I don't think there is anything we can do here. It's normally up to the client (LSP client) to decide how to use the information provided by the LSP server and how they create features like sticky scroll.

Glad to see your question got answered! Thanks.