WoW-native intelligence that general-purpose Lua tooling can't match: 9,000+ WoW API stubs, typed event handlers, XML frame scanning, and deep nil safety.
9,000+ API stubs for retail, classic, and classic era - loaded instantly, no setup needed. XML frame scanning types your templates and named frames automatically. Full .toc file editing with hover, completions, and diagnostics.
SetScript handlers get typed automatically: self, event, and per-event payload params. Narrow event == "ENCOUNTER_END" and ... resolves to the exact payload types. Works with custom event systems too.
Understands setmetatable + __index chains, __call, operator metamethods, and self-referential metatables. Your OOP patterns just work - no annotations needed.
Nil errors are the #1 cause of addon crashes. wowlua-ls tracks nil through every guard - if-checks, assert, early returns, type() tests, and field presence - so you never get false nil warnings, and multi-return values narrow together (check one, the rest come with it). Enable need-check-nil to flag unsafe access before it ships.
Type safety, nil checking, annotation correctness, code quality, and WoW-specific checks like wrong-flavor-api. Each one suppressible per-line or per-project. Write custom diagnostic plugins in Lua.
Addon namespace resolution, class inheritance across files, defclass factories, XML templates, and metatable chains - all resolved workspace-wide with parallel scanning. Multi-addon workspaces supported.
Declare target flavors (retail, classic, classic_era) and get warnings on APIs that don't exist in all your targets. WOW_PROJECT_ID guards and @flavor-narrows are understood.
wowlua_ls check path/to/addon lints your addon from the command line. Exit code 1 on diagnostics. Drop it straight into your CI pipeline.
Uses the same ---@ annotation syntax you already know. Migrate incrementally. Your existing annotations work, and wowlua-ls adds powerful WoW-specific extensions on top.
