Helios

A desktop IDE for Zith projects, built with Qt 6.

Helios is a native editor focused on the Zith ecosystem. It currently ships with a code editor, LSP integration, workspace search, file tree navigation, a basic Git panel, diagnostics, snippets, context switching, and persistent editor preferences.

Navigate

• Overview
• Features
• Project Layout
• Requirements
• Quick Start
• Zith Integration Notes
• Build Artifacts
• Roadmap
• Current Caveats

Overview

Helios is not a generic text editor wrapper. The current app is shaped around a Zith-first workflow:

• multi-tab code editing with syntax highlighting
• LSP-backed completion, hover, diagnostics, definition and signature help
• workspace explorer and search
• Git status, staging, unstaging and commit flow
• project context switching
• persistent editor preferences such as font size and word wrap

The UI is built in Qt Widgets, so it stays fast, native and easy to iterate on without pulling in a browser runtime.

Features

Editing

• multi-tab editor with line numbers
• syntax highlighting for Zith source
• snippet expansion
• auto-close pairs, indentation helpers and find/replace
• breadcrumb path display and editor status information

Language Tooling

• Zith LSP client process management
• incremental textDocument/didChange sync with debounce
• diagnostics panel
• hover, completion, definition and signature help wiring

Workspace

• file tree explorer
• workspace search panel
• basic project bootstrap for new Zith projects
• context save/restore across opened files

Git

• repository detection
• branch/status overview
• stage all
• stage selected
• unstage selected
• commit with message

Project Layout

.
|-- editor/                 # Core UI, editor widgets, panels and services
|-- docs/                   # Project notes and roadmap
|-- main.cpp                # Qt application bootstrap
|-- CMakeLists.txt          # Build definition
`-- .github/workflows/      # CI and release automation

Key modules inside editor/:

• MainWindow.*: main shell, layout, commands and wiring
• Code.*: editor widget, input behavior and LSP document sync
• LspClient.*: JSON-RPC client for zith-lsp
• FileTreePanel.*, SearchPanel.*, GitPanel.*, SettingsPanel.*: sidebar panels
• Syntax.*: highlighting rules

Requirements

• CMake 3.21+
• Qt 6 with Core, Gui and Widgets
• a C++17 compiler
• Ninja recommended

For the full Zith-oriented workflow, Helios also expects:

• zithc available in PATH for compiler actions
• network access on first run so the managed Zith runtime can be cached locally

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/GalaxyHaze/Helios-IDE.git
cd Helios-IDE
cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++
cmake --build build
./build/Helios

If CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE is not specified, the project currently defaults single-config generators such as Ninja to Release.

Zith Integration Notes

Helios now resolves the Zith runtime dynamically instead of depending on local development paths.

• on startup it can query the latest Zith-Lang release
• it caches the matching zith-lsp binary and stdlib under the app data directory
• if a cached runtime already exists, Helios can start from cache first and refresh in the background
• editor snippets are bundled with the application resources

For local development or pinning a custom runtime, you can override the managed bootstrap with:

• HELIOS_ZITH_LSP_PATH
• HELIOS_ZITH_STDLIB_PATH

Build Artifacts

This repository includes a GitHub Actions workflow at .github/workflows/build-artifact.yml modeled after the Zith release flow, but adapted to Helios.

Current artifact behavior:

• builds Release binaries for Linux, Linux arm64, macOS, Windows and Windows arm64
• uploads CI artifacts for each platform
• on tagged releases, also attaches the archived build output to the GitHub release
• packages the built executable and a short note about Qt runtime expectations
• deploys the Qt runtime into the Windows release archives so Scoop can install a runnable app

Install

Scoop

The repository ships a Scoop manifest at .github/scoop/bucket/helios.json.

Today you can install directly from the manifest URL:

scoop install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GalaxyHaze/Helios-IDE/main/.github/scoop/bucket/helios.json

Installer Scripts

Unix-like systems:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GalaxyHaze/Helios-IDE/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

Windows PowerShell:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GalaxyHaze/Helios-IDE/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex

Homebrew

The Homebrew tap is published at GalaxyHaze/homebrew-helios.

Current install flow:

brew tap GalaxyHaze/helios
brew install --HEAD helios

Once the stable release automation has populated the versioned formula, you can use:

brew install helios

Release Automation

The repository now separates release automation into:

• .github/workflows/create-release.yml for tag + release page + artifact build + package manager updates
• .github/workflows/build-artifact.yml for cross-platform release builds
• .github/workflows/package-managers.yml for Scoop and Homebrew package manager updates

Package manager updates are intended for stable releases. Draft and prerelease runs still build artifacts, but they do not update Scoop or Homebrew metadata automatically.

This is intentionally conservative: the workflow does not yet attempt full self-contained Qt deployment on every platform.

Roadmap

The current roadmap lives in docs/ide-roadmap.md.

Current direction:

• stabilize editor and startup plumbing
• remove hardcoded local paths for LSP/snippets/examples
• improve async search and navigation
• deepen Git integration
• keep refining the visual consistency of the activity/sidebar model

Current Caveats

• First-run LSP bootstrap depends on being able to reach the latest Zith release unless a cached runtime or explicit override is already available.
• Linux and macOS release artifacts are still build outputs rather than polished native installers.
• There is no dedicated automated test suite yet.
• The app is under active iteration and should be treated as a fast-moving tool rather than a frozen product.