Hello! Stan users who use VSCode are probably familiar with stan-vscode by ivan-bocharov . I recently published an updated version of this extension called vscode-stan-extension In addition to the features of the original stan-vscode (syntax highlighting, code folding, snippets) this also features …

This looks great! Are you planning to also add the autocompletion for the Stan functions name ?

This is awesome. I’ve dreamed for this for ages. Now super happy for making the switch to vscode a few months ago :D It will help my workflow a lot. I second the request for function completion :) seem the syntax highlighter is already aware of built-in functions because it colors them if they matc…

I think I know how to do autocomplete. Hover-over documentation is harder , since we don’t have an immediate mapping from the function name to a documentation link, as far as I know. I might be able to figure out something clever I haven’t thought of yet.

Ah, I hadn’t realized that the documentation just lives inside the markdown files that generate the website. Not sure if it’s worth the effort, but in principle you can create a separate .md file for each function with the content currently presented in the function reference, and then just embed th…

I see that for the core C++ stan math library the documentation is written with doxygen and documentation for individual functions is available. Can this be leveraged? I know that this is documetnation for the C++ usage, but the function names match, right, so maybe the necessary things could be ext…

Unfortunately the gen_index idea wouldn’t quite work, because the index links are based on the signatures we use in the docs, which don’t line up 100% with what the compiler uses when it comes to certain shorthands (like abs is written in the docs as abs(T), rather than listing all the types it acce…

Yes, the last option could be a decent intermediate solution - definitely faster than searching. Long term splitting the function docs could nice for many reasons like this when you might suddenly want to use documentation for multiple purposes.

[image] andrjohns: is there a way to support .stanfunctions files? I’ve just published 0.7.0 which has better support for stanfunctions files: linting should work formatting should work things like generated quantities { in a .stanfunctions file will no longer be highlighted I also added s…

I’ve just published 0.8.0, featuring: built-in function and distribution completion: [preview] hover-over text for built in functions with a link to the documentation and a list of known signatures: [preview]

New VSCode plugin for Stan

Announcements

jachymb May 31, 2026, 10:30pm 23

I created a similar plugin for JetBrains enjoyers :)

Topic		Replies	Views
Updated Stan Syntax Highlighting in VS Code General	20	2080	November 15, 2021
PSA: vscode is great for Stan Publicity	4	1422	November 28, 2021
Seeking feedback on the Stan formatter Interfaces stanc , stanc3	0	112	October 16, 2025
Is there a R Stan Code parser? General	3	272	November 7, 2023
`stan-vim`: A Vim plugin for Stan Publicity	6	1266	November 14, 2019

New VSCode plugin for Stan

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