Broken HTML syntax highlighting support #14208

wavesinaroom · 2025-08-11T00:13:41Z

wavesinaroom
Aug 11, 2025

Summary

Hi!

First of, thanks a lot for giving Helix editor to the world. After being a vim/nvim user for sometime, my coding experience with Helix has been absolutely great. Congrats to the team :) you guys have made a cool editor for us.

Now, I've mainly used Helix for other areas of development than frontend. Currently, I'm working on a Django project so I included the following settings for html editing on Helix 25.07:



[[language]]
name = "html"
scope = "text.html.basic"
injection-regex = "html"
file-types = ["html", "htm", "shtml", "xhtml", "xht", "jsp", "asp", "aspx", "jshtm", "volt", "rhtml", "cshtml"]
block-comment-tokens = { start = "<!--", end = "-->" }
language-servers = [ "vscode-html-language-server", "superhtml" ]
auto-format = true
indent = { tab-width = 2, unit = "  " }

[[grammar]]
name = "html"
source = { git = "https://github.com/tree-sitter/tree-sitter-html", rev = "cbb91a0ff3621245e890d1c50cc811bffb77a26b" }


[[language]]
name = "htmldjango"
scope = "source.htmldjango"
injection-regex = "htmldjango"
roots = []
file-types = []
indent = { tab-width = 2, unit = "  " }
language-servers = ["djlsp", "vscode-html-language-server"]
formatter = { command = "djlint", args = [
    "--reformat",
    "--profile=django",
    "--indent=2",
    "--blank-line-after-tag=load,extends,include,endblock",
    "--format-css",
    "--format-js",
    "-",
]}

[[grammar]]
name = "htmldjango"
source = { git = "https://github.com/interdependence/tree-sitter-htmldjango", rev = "ea71012d3fe14dd0b69f36be4f96bdfe9155ebae" }

When I create a plain html file say test.html and write some tags in it the syntax isn't highlighted

Also, saving my file adds weird <head> tags and breaks indentation as well.

plain html

Alright, if I want to work on a Django template my syntax highlighting is broken again and djlsp doesn't detect my Django project settings

Django template

I know this is potentially a tree-sitter issue but honestly I don't know how to solve. Can anyone lend me a hand with this problem please?

Reproduction Steps

I tried this:

Remove installed html LSP
Close the editor and open it again

I also tried to install another helix version

I expected this to happen:

HTML highlighted syntax

Instead, this happened:

No highlighted syntax and LSPs not working properly

Helix log

~/.cache/helix/helix.log

Caused by:
    channel closed)
2025-08-10T18:32:01.929 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err: <- StreamClosed
2025-08-10T18:32:04.668 helix_core::syntax [ERROR] Failed to compile highlights for 'html': invalid node type "entity"
  --> 5:2
   |
 4 | (attribute_name) @attribute
 5 | (entity) @string.special.symbol
   |  ^^^^^^
 6 | (comment) @comment
   |

2025-08-10T18:32:05.649 helix_term::application [WARN] Ignoring a client/registerCapability request because dynamic capability registration is not enabled. Please report this upstream to the language server
2025-08-10T18:32:06.111 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "Python was not found; run without arguments to install from the Microsoft Store, or disable this shortcut from Settings > Apps > Advanced app settings > App execution aliases.\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "Collector failed with:\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "Traceback (most recent call last):\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "  File \"C:\\Users\\juank\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python313\\Lib\\site-packages\\djlsp\\server.py\", line 308, in _get_django_data_from_python_path\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "    return json.loads(subprocess.check_output(command).decode())\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "  File \"C:\\Users\\juank\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python313\\Lib\\subprocess.py\", line 472, in check_output\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "    return run(*popenargs, stdout=PIPE, timeout=timeout, check=True,\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "           ~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "               **kwargs).stdout\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "               ^^^^^^^^^\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "  File \"C:\\Users\\juank\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python313\\Lib\\subprocess.py\", line 577, in run\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "    raise CalledProcessError(retcode, process.args,\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "                             output=stdout, stderr=stderr)\r\n"
2025-08-10T18:32:06.122 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] djlsp err <- "subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['C:\\\\Users\\\\juank\\\\AppData\\\\Local\\\\Microsoft\\\\WindowsApps\\\\python3.EXE', 'C:\\\\Users\\\\juank\\\\AppData\\\\Local\\\\Programs\\\\Python\\\\Python313\\\\Lib\\\\site-packages\\\\djlsp\\\\scripts\\\\django-collector.py', '--project-src=c:\\\\Users\\\\juank\\\\dev\\\\python\\\\gamedev_web_ecosystem']' returned non-zero exit status 9009.\r\n"

Platform

Windows

Terminal Emulator

Windows terminal

Installation Method

winget

Helix Version

helix 25.07

the-mikedavis · 2025-08-11T13:09:44Z

the-mikedavis
Aug 11, 2025
Maintainer

You should avoid adding [[grammar]] sections to your custom languages.toml - here that is setting a newer version for the tree-sitter-html parser which is incompatible with the older highlights.scm query for HTML in your runtime directory.

2025-08-10T18:32:04.668 helix_core::syntax [ERROR] Failed to compile highlights for 'html': invalid node type "entity"
  --> 5:2
   |
 4 | (attribute_name) @attribute
 5 | (entity) @string.special.symbol
   |  ^^^^^^
 6 | (comment) @comment
   |

Removing the [[grammar]] section and running hx -g fetch and hx -g build should fix the HTML highlights

1 reply

wavesinaroom Aug 12, 2025
Author

Thanks for your help @the-mikedavis! I removed the [[grammar]] sections, fetched and built grammars. It all works wonders now.

Have a good one!

Provide feedback

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Broken HTML syntax highlighting support #14208

Uh oh!

{{title}}

Uh oh!

Replies: 1 comment 1 reply

Uh oh!

{{title}}

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

{{title}}

Uh oh!

Select a reply

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Broken HTML syntax highlighting support #14208

Uh oh!

wavesinaroom Aug 11, 2025

Summary

Reproduction Steps

Helix log

Platform

Terminal Emulator

Installation Method

Helix Version

Replies: 1 comment · 1 reply

Uh oh!

the-mikedavis Aug 11, 2025 Maintainer

Uh oh!

wavesinaroom Aug 12, 2025 Author

wavesinaroom
Aug 11, 2025

Replies: 1 comment 1 reply

the-mikedavis
Aug 11, 2025
Maintainer

wavesinaroom Aug 12, 2025
Author