Forge Editor

For forging your next project inside of a browser.

🚨 WARNING 🚨

This project is currently just my thoughts and playing around with ideas. Honestly it doesn't work right now because i don't have the time to polish it. Here is commit fef7146 with files already created to show a demo of what i've worked on.

basic-editor.mp4

Overview

Here's the pitch, what if we had a editor in the browser that anyone could visit and just start programming. The "editor" would run on the server and use a LSP-like protocol to communicate between the client and the server using websockets. The secret sauce to the idea would be that the editor is actually a large micro-service that is calling LSP's through network calls. By deploying an editor in this way, we can distribute it across multiple machines.

A rough sketch of some of my thoughts is below.

Development

You need to setup redis. If you don't want to start a docker container, just run the following in your terminal.

brew install redis
redis-server

You'll also need an S3 server with the following variables defined in .env file

S3_BUCKET="forge-editor"
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=""
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=""
# Create this folder
ROOT_PROJECT_DIRECTORY="./.workspace-cache"

Installing language servers

You'll also need to install language servers so that you can effectively.

Warning

Only javascript has been tested a lot.

# Install gopls... lol idk how to do this.
# Installing markdown LSP
brew install marksman
# Installing Rust LSP
rustup component install rust-analyzer
# Install language servers for the Web
npm i -g typescript-language-server vscode-json-languageserver npm install vscode-markdown-languageservice vscode-html-languageserver-bin vscode-css-languageservice typescript

Setup

Configure the Rust server with one or more project workspaces. Paths in the JSON manifest are relative to FORGE_WORKSPACES_ROOT; physical roots are never sent to the browser. Copy .env.example and adjust it for your machine:

PORT=8080
FORGE_ENVIRONMENT_ID=local
FORGE_ENVIRONMENT_NAME="Local projects"
FORGE_WORKSPACES_ROOT=/workspaces
FORGE_WORKSPACES_JSON='[{"id":"forge-editor","name":"Forge Editor","path":"forge-editor"}]'
FORGE_DEFAULT_WORKSPACE=forge-editor

Multiple workspaces require FORGE_DEFAULT_WORKSPACE. Configuration is read once at startup. BASE_DIRECTORY remains available temporarily and creates a single workspace named default.

Install the packages

npm i

Patch for web socket support (next.js doesn't support this out of the box)

npx next-ws-cli@latest patch

Getting Started

First, run the development server:

npm run dev
# or
yarn dev
# or
pnpm dev
# or
bun dev

Debugging (phase 1)

Forge supports launch-only debugging through a server-owned adapter strategy. Add .vscode/launch.json to a configured workspace:

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Debug app",
      "type": "forge-rust",
      "request": "launch",
      "program": "${workspaceFolder}/target/debug/app",
      "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
      "args": [],
      "env": {},
      "console": "internalConsole"
    }
  ]
}

The program and working directory must already exist and resolve inside the workspace. JSON comments and trailing commas are accepted. Integrated terminal, attach, command/config/environment substitutions, and arbitrary adapter commands are intentionally rejected in phase 1.

Debug adapter system dependencies

Debug adapters run on the Forge server, so these are server dependencies rather than browser dependencies. Install the adapters for the languages the server is expected to debug:

launch.json type	Languages	Required server program	Transport
forge-rust	Rust and other native binaries	lldb-dap	stdio
forge-go	Go	dlv (Delve)	loopback TCP
forge-node	JavaScript and TypeScript	node and the VS Code js-debug dapDebugServer.js bundle	loopback TCP
forge-python	Python	python3 with the debugpy module	stdio

Typical development-machine installations are:

# Rust/native debugging (macOS)
brew install llvm

# Go debugging; make sure the resulting dlv binary is copied or linked into
# /usr/local/bin or another PATH directory available to the Forge service.
go install github.com/go-delve/delve/cmd/dlv@latest

# Python debugging. Use the same python3 installation visible to Forge.
python3 -m pip install debugpy

For JavaScript and TypeScript, build or install Microsoft's vscode-js-debug adapter on the server and point Forge at its debug-server entry point:

FORGE_JS_DEBUG_SCRIPT=/opt/forge/js-debug/src/dapDebugServer.js

The configured file must be readable by the Forge service account. Forge starts it as node "$FORGE_JS_DEBUG_SCRIPT" <ephemeral-port> and keeps the port bound to loopback. The browser cannot select an adapter executable or network address.

Production images should pin adapter versions in their package/image manifest instead of using floating installers such as @latest. A missing executable, Python module, or JavaScript adapter bundle produces a sanitized failed-session message without exposing the server path.