Using an IDE

You can use either Metals (VS Code, vim) or IntelliJ IDEA as described on the IDE Support page to work on the Scala 3 codebase. There are however a few additional considerations to take into account.

Bootstrapping Projects

The sbt build for dotty implements bootstrapping within the same build, so each component has two projects:

sbt:scala3> projects
...
[info] 	   scala3-compiler
[info] 	   scala3-compiler-bootstrapped
...

These duplicated projects can be confusing and cause issues in IDEs.

When using Metals, the -bootstrapped projects are not exported.

In IntelliJ IDEA, we recommend importing the dotty codebase through BSP as described on the IDE Support page, then the -bootstrapped projects are not exported.

Scala Version warning in Metals

When using VS Code, Metals might show a warning that the Scala version (3.0.0-[...]-NIGHTLY) is not supported. The reason is that the dotty repository sometimes uses a nightly build as reference compiler. The IDE experience is going to be limited in this case (semantic features will only within single files).