move-mode

move-mode is an Emacs major-mode for editing smart contracts written in the Move programming language. Supports Emacs 25.1 and above (tested on Emacs for Mac OS X 25.1-1, Emacs Mac Port 28.1).

There are multiple flavors of Move (Core Move, Sui Move, etc). This mode aims to be agnostic to the flavor of Move you are writing in by offering customizations to tweak the experience.

This mode does not provide auto-complete, goto definition, or other language-server-based features out of the box, but check the LSP section for details on how to enable them using Move Analyzer.

Known Issues

• Filling a paragraph in an unterminated multi-line comment (starting with /* but with no matching */), or inserting a newline to continue the comment causes Emacs to use /* as the fill prefix rather than the intended *. This can be fixed by adding the closing */.

Installation

Recommended: straight.el and use-package

The recommended approach is to install this package using use-package and straight.el by including the following to your init.el:

(use-package move-mode
  :straight (:host github :repo "amnn/move-mode" :branch "main"))

Just straight.el:

You can also use straight.el directly:

(straight-use-package
  '(move-mode :type git :host github :repo "amnn/move-mode"))

MELPA

move-mode is not available on MELPA yet, watch this space.

(Not Recommended) Manual Install

Or install the package completely manually, by cloning the repo and adding the following:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/move-move/repo")
(autoload 'move-mode "move-mode" nil t)
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.move\\'" . move-mode))

Features

• move-mode recognises Move syntax such as keywords, scopes, variable declarations, literals, imports, and module, function and struct definitions. It exposes these so font lock mode can apply syntax highlighting to them.
• Emacs' built-in indentation (usually bound to TAB) will bring the line/cursor to the correct column based on the level of nesting, and whether you are continuing an earlier expression or not.
• The keymap includes keybindings to interact with the current package, using the Move CLI, where the current package is defined as the parent directory that contains the Move.toml. It adds the following bindings by default:
  • C-cC-cC-b: move build the current package.
  • C-cC-cC-d: move disassemble a module (requested interactively) in the current package.
  • C-cC-cC-p: move prove the current package.
  • C-cC-cC-t: move test the current package.

Customization

• move-indent-offset (default: 4) controls the gap between tab-stops.
• move-bin (default: "move") controls the binary to send Move CLI commands to.
• move-builtins (default: core-move-builtin-functions) The keywords that are highlighted as builtin functions. Defaults to the list that are recognised in Core Move, which is packaged as a constant with the mode.
  • NOTE: Prover-specific keywords are not highlighted by default, but are included with the mode as move-prover-keywords. If you would like them to be highlighted, consider:

(customize-set-variable 'move-builtins
  (concat core-move-builtin-functions
          move-prover-keywords))

• move-default-arguments (default "") any extra commands to pass to Move CLI commands -- these are added to the end.

LSP

move-mode does not configure an LSP server for Move by default, but it is possible to integrate Move Analyzer with Emacs.

The analyzer is installed directly from its repo, via cargo:

$ cargo install --git https://github.com/move-language/move move-analyzer

It can be modified using --feature flags passed to the install command above. The two most common ones are:

• --features "address20" option for Move flavors requiring 20-byte long addresses (e.g., Sui Move)
• --features "address32" option for Move flavors requiring 32-byte long addresses (e.g., Aptos Move)

A full list of supported features can be found in the [features] section of its Cargo.toml.

Eglot

Once move-analyzer is installed, integrating it into Eglot is as simple as adding the following configuration to your init.el:

(add-hook 'move-mode-hook #'eglot-ensure)
(add-to-list 'eglot-server-programs '(move-mode "move-analyzer"))

Eglot uses project.el (Emacs' built-in project management) to find the root of your project. It defaults to looking for the version control repository root. If you work with repositories where your Move packages are nested in sub-directories, add the following to allow Eglot to find projects by looking for Move.toml:

(defun my/move-lsp-project-root (dir)
  (and-let* (((boundp 'eglot-lsp-context))
             (eglot-lsp-context)
             (override (locate-dominating-file dir "Move.toml")))
    (cons 'Move.toml override)))

(add-hook 'project-find-functions #'my/move-lsp-project-root)
(cl-defmethod project-root ((project (head Move.toml)))
  (cdr project)))

NOTE: This will not affect finding project files outside of the LSP.

Lsp mode

Once move-analyzer is installed, tell lsp-mode how to find the executable:

(with-eval-after-load 'lsp-mode
  (add-to-list 'lsp-language-id-configuration '(move-mode . "move"))
  (lsp-register-client
   (make-lsp-client
    :new-connection (lsp-stdio-connection "move-analyzer")
    :activation-fn (lsp-activate-on "move")
    :priority -1
    :server-id 'move-analyzer))))

Contributing

Contributions are very welcome! If you notice a bug, try updating move-mode, and if it is still there please share a report as an issue, with:

• Details on your configuration (operating system, version and variant of Emacs, minimal Emacs init.el, version -- i.e. git revision -- of move-mode).
• The sequence of actions you took.
• The expected outcome.
• The actual outcome, with screenshots if relevant.

If you are interested in working on features please take a look at current open issues for inspiration!