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SerenityOS supports a wide range of development environments, from full-featured IDEs to terminal-based editors. Choose the setup that best fits your workflow.

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Supported IDEs and Editors

SerenityOS has detailed configuration guides for the following development environments:

VS Code

Popular cross-platform editor with excellent clangd support

CLion

JetBrains IDE with native CMake integration

Vim/Neovim

Terminal-based editors with powerful plugins

Emacs

Extensible editor with lsp-mode support

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Common Requirements

Regardless of your editor choice, you’ll need:
  • clangd: For code comprehension and navigation. See ClangdConfiguration for setup details.
  • clang-format: For automatic code formatting according to SerenityOS style guidelines.
  • Build directory: Run ./Meta/serenity.sh build at least once to generate necessary build artifacts.
  • Toolchain: Build the toolchain with ./Toolchain/BuildGNU.sh before configuring your IDE.

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Code Comprehension

All recommended setups use clangd for code comprehension, which provides:
  • Fast, accurate autocomplete
  • Jump-to-definition and find-references
  • Inline diagnostics and error checking
  • Cross-compilation support for SerenityOS targets
Clangd works well with SerenityOS’s cross-compilation workflow and understands the custom toolchain and sysroot.

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Formatting

SerenityOS uses clang-format to maintain consistent code style. The repository includes a .clang-format configuration file that all editors should respect.

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Next Steps

Choose your preferred development environment:

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