clice/docs/en/architecture.md

Server Architecture

clice uses a multi-process architecture where a single Master Server coordinates multiple Worker processes. This design isolates Clang AST operations (which are memory-heavy and may crash) from the main LSP event loop.

Overview

┌──────────────┐   JSON/LSP    ┌────────────────┐   Bincode/IPC   ┌──────────────────┐
│   LSP Client │ ◄──────────► │  Master Server  │ ◄─────────────► │ Stateful Workers │
│   (Editor)   │    (stdio)    │                 │    (stdio)      │  (AST cache)     │
└──────────────┘               │  - Lifecycle    │                 └──────────────────┘
                               │  - Documents    │
                               │  - CDB          │   Bincode/IPC   ┌──────────────────┐
                               │  - Build drain  │ ◄─────────────► │ Stateless Workers│
                               │  - Indexing     │    (stdio)      │  (one-shot tasks)│
                               └────────────────┘                 └──────────────────┘

Master Server

The master server (src/server/master_server.cpp) is the central coordinator. It runs a single-threaded async event loop and never touches Clang directly. Its responsibilities:

LSP Lifecycle

The server progresses through these states:

1. Uninitialized — waiting for initialize request
2. Initialized — capabilities exchanged, waiting for initialized notification
3. Ready — workers spawned, workspace loaded, accepting requests
4. ShuttingDown — shutdown received, draining work
5. Exited — exit received, stopping the event loop

On initialized, the master:

• Loads configuration from clice.toml (or uses defaults)
• Starts the worker pool (spawns stateful + stateless processes)
• Loads compile_commands.json and builds an include graph
• Starts the background indexer coroutine (if enabled)

Document Management

Each open document is tracked in a DocumentState with:

• Current version and text (kept in sync via didOpen/didChange)
• A generation counter to detect stale compile results
• Build state flags (build_running, build_requested, drain_scheduled)

When a document is opened or changed:

1. The include graph is re-scanned (via dependency directives)
2. The compile unit is registered/updated in the CompileGraph
3. A debounced build is scheduled

Build Drain

The run_build_drain coroutine implements debounced compilation:

1. Wait for the debounce timer (default 200ms) to expire
2. Ensure PCH/PCM dependencies are ready via CompileGraph
3. Send a compile request to the assigned stateful worker
4. Publish diagnostics from the result (or clear them on failure)
5. If more edits arrived during compilation (build_requested), loop back to step 2

This ensures rapid typing doesn't trigger a compile per keystroke.

Request Routing

Feature requests are split between two worker types:

Stateful workers (affinity-routed by file path):

• textDocument/hover
• textDocument/semanticTokens/full
• textDocument/inlayHint
• textDocument/foldingRange
• textDocument/documentSymbol
• textDocument/documentLink
• textDocument/codeAction
• textDocument/definition

Stateless workers (round-robin):

• textDocument/completion
• textDocument/signatureHelp

All feature responses use RawValue passthrough — the worker serializes the LSP result to JSON, and the master forwards the raw JSON bytes to the client without deserializing. This avoids bincode↔JSON conversion overhead and serde annotation conflicts.

Worker Pool

The worker pool (src/server/worker_pool.cpp) manages spawning and communicating with worker processes. Each worker is a child process of the same clice binary, launched with --mode stateful-worker or --mode stateless-worker.

Communication

Workers communicate with the master via stdio pipes using a bincode serialization format (via eventide::ipc::BincodePeer). This is more compact and faster than JSON for internal IPC, while the master handles JSON for the external LSP protocol.

Stateful Worker Routing

Stateful workers use affinity routing: each file is consistently assigned to the same worker so that the worker retains the cached AST. Assignment uses a least-loaded strategy for new files, with LRU tracking to manage ownership.

When a worker exceeds its document capacity (currently hardcoded at 16 documents), it evicts the least-recently-used document and notifies the master via an evicted notification.

Stateless Worker Routing

Stateless workers use simple round-robin dispatch. Each request includes the full source text and compilation arguments, so any worker can handle it independently.

Stateful Worker

The stateful worker (src/server/stateful_worker.cpp) caches compiled ASTs in memory. Key behavior:

• Compile: Parses source code into a CompilationUnit, caches the AST, and returns diagnostics as a RawValue (JSON bytes)
• Feature queries: Look up the cached AST and invoke the corresponding feature::* function (hover, semantic tokens, etc.), serializing the result to JSON
• Document updates: Received as notifications — the worker updates the stored text and marks the document as dirty, causing feature queries to return null until recompilation
• Eviction: LRU-based; evicts the oldest document when capacity is exceeded, notifying the master
• Concurrency: Each document has a per-document et::mutex (strand) to serialize compilation and feature queries. Heavy work (compilation, feature extraction) runs on a thread pool via et::queue.

Stateless Worker

The stateless worker (src/server/stateless_worker.cpp) handles one-shot requests that don't benefit from cached ASTs:

• Completion: Creates a fresh compilation with CompilationKind::Completion and invokes feature::code_complete
• Signature help: Similar to completion, using feature::signature_help
• Build PCH: Compiles a precompiled header to a temporary file
• Build PCM: Compiles a C++20 module interface to a temporary file
• Index: Compiles a file for indexing (TUIndex generation — currently a stub)

All requests are dispatched to a thread pool via et::queue.

Compile Graph

The compile graph (src/server/compile_graph.cpp) tracks compilation unit dependencies as a DAG. It handles:

• Registration: Each file registers its included dependencies
• Cascade invalidation: When a file changes, all transitive dependents are marked dirty and their ongoing compilations are cancelled
• Dependency compilation: Before compiling a file, compile_deps ensures all dependencies (PCH, PCMs) are built first
• Cancellation: Uses et::cancellation_source to abort in-flight compilations when files are invalidated

Configuration

The server reads configuration from clice.toml (or .clice/config.toml) in the workspace root. If no config file exists, sensible defaults are computed from system resources:

Setting	Default	Description
stateful_worker_count	CPU cores / 4	Number of stateful worker processes
stateless_worker_count	CPU cores / 4	Number of stateless worker processes
worker_memory_limit	4 GB	Memory limit per stateful worker
compile_commands_path	auto-detect	Path to compile_commands.json
cache_dir	<workspace>/.clice/	Cache directory for PCH/PCM files
debounce_ms	200	Debounce interval for recompilation
enable_indexing	true	Enable background indexing
idle_timeout_ms	3000	Idle time before background indexing starts

String values support ${workspace} substitution.

IPC Protocol

The master and workers communicate using custom RPC messages defined in src/server/protocol.h. Each message type has a RequestTraits or NotificationTraits specialization that defines the method name and result type.

Stateful Worker Messages

Method	Direction	Purpose
clice/worker/compile	Request	Compile source and return diagnostics
clice/worker/hover	Request	Get hover info at position
clice/worker/semanticTokens	Request	Get semantic tokens for file
clice/worker/inlayHints	Request	Get inlay hints for range
clice/worker/foldingRange	Request	Get folding ranges
clice/worker/documentSymbol	Request	Get document symbols
clice/worker/documentLink	Request	Get document links
clice/worker/codeAction	Request	Get code actions for range
clice/worker/goToDefinition	Request	Go to definition at position
clice/worker/documentUpdate	Notification	Update document text (marks dirty)
clice/worker/evict	Notification	Master → Worker: evict a document
clice/worker/evicted	Notification	Worker → Master: document was evicted

Stateless Worker Messages

Method	Direction	Purpose
clice/worker/completion	Request	Code completion at position
clice/worker/signatureHelp	Request	Signature help at position
clice/worker/buildPCH	Request	Build precompiled header
clice/worker/buildPCM	Request	Build C++20 module interface
clice/worker/index	Request	Index a translation unit