CLANGD(1)

📦
version 14.0.6 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu questing

💅 CLANGD(1) — ok so this is the manual page for clangd 14 ✨

Bestie. Sit down. We're learning clangd and it's gonna be iconic.

🦋 NAME 🦋

clangd — literally the manual page for clangd 14, no cap

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

OVERVIEW: clangd is a language server that hands your editor all those IDE-ish features you're obsessed with. It's giving ✨main character energy✨ for your code.

🫶 how to actually use it (please read this part)

Use it via an editor plugin, not by yelling at it directly in your terminal. Like, don't invoke it yourself, ok? For more info, go look at:

https://clangd.llvm.org/
https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/

clangd takes flags on the commandline, and it also reads them from the CLANGD_FLAGS environment variable. Both. She's flexible like that 💅

usage

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

✨ Generic Options ✨

  • --help — Display available options (--help-hidden for more)
  • --help-list — Display list of available options (--help-list-hidden for more)
  • --version — Display the version of this program

🔥 clangd compilation flags options 🔥

  • --compile-commands-dir=<string> — Specify a path to look for compile_commands.json. If that path is invalid, clangd will look in the current directory and parent paths of each source file. So it's got a backup plan, she's prepared 💖
  • --query-driver=<string> — A comma separated list of globs for white-listing gcc-compatible drivers that are safe to execute. Drivers matching any of these globs will be used to extract system includes. e.g. /usr/bin/**/clang-*,/path/to/repo/**/g++-*

👑 clangd feature options 👑

  • --all-scopes-completion — If set to true, code completion will include index symbols that are not defined in the scopes (e.g. namespaces) visible from the code completion point. Such completions can insert scope qualifiers. Sneaky little qualifiers, love that for them.
  • --background-index — Index project code in the background and persist index on disk.
  • --clang-tidy — Enable clang-tidy diagnostics
  • --completion-style=<value> — Granularity of code completion suggestions
    • =detailed — One completion item for each semantically distinct completion, with full type information
    • =bundled — Similar completion items (e.g. function overloads) are combined. Type information shown where possible
  • --fallback-style=<string> — clang-format style to apply by default when no .clang-format file is found
  • --function-arg-placeholders — When disabled, completions contain only parentheses for function calls. When enabled, completions also contain placeholders for method parameters
  • --header-insertion=<value> — Add #include directives when accepting code completions
    • =iwyu — Include what you use. Insert the owning header for top-level symbols, unless the header is already directly included or the symbol is forward-declared
    • =never — Never insert #include directives as part of code completion
  • --header-insertion-decorators — Prepend a circular dot or space before the completion label, depending on whether an include line will be inserted or not. Cute lil dot. Dot is the vibe check 🎀
  • --limit-references=<int> — Limit the number of references returned by clangd. 0 means no limit (default=1000)
  • --limit-results=<int> — Limit the number of results returned by clangd. 0 means no limit (default=100)
  • --project-root=<string> — Path to the project root. Requires remote-index-address to be set.
  • --remote-index-address=<string> — Address of the remote index server

🧚 clangd miscellaneous options 🧚

  • --check[=<string>] — Parse one file in isolation instead of acting as a language server. Useful to investigate/reproduce crashes or configuration problems. With --check=<filename>, attempts to parse a particular file. Lowkey the detective mode fr fr 🔍
  • --check-lines[=<string>] — If specified, limits the range of tokens in -check file on which various features are tested. Example --check-lines=3-7 restricts testing to lines 3 to 7 (inclusive) or --check-lines=5 to restrict to one line. Default is testing entire file.
  • --enable-config — Read user and project configuration from YAML files. Project config is from a .clangd file in the project directory. User config is from clangd/config.yaml in the following directories:
    • Windows: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local
    • Mac OS: ~/Library/Preferences/
    • Others: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME, usually ~/.config

Configuration is documented at https://clangd.llvm.org/config.html

  • -j=<uint> — Number of async workers used by clangd. Background index also uses this many workers.
  • --malloc-trim — Release memory periodically via malloc_trim(3).
  • --pch-storage=<value> — Storing PCHs in memory increases memory usages, but may improve performance
    • =disk — store PCHs on disk
    • =memory — store PCHs in memory

🌈 clangd protocol and logging options 🌈

  • --log=<value> — Verbosity of log messages written to stderr
    • =error — Error messages only
    • =info — High level execution tracing
    • =verbose — Low level details
  • --offset-encoding=<value> — Force the offsetEncoding used for character positions. This bypasses negotiation via client capabilities
    • =utf-8 — Offsets are in UTF-8 bytes
    • =utf-16 — Offsets are in UTF-16 code units
    • =utf-32 — Offsets are in unicode codepoints
  • --path-mappings=<string> — Translates between client paths (as seen by a remote editor) and server paths (where clangd sees files on disk). Comma separated list of '<client_path>=<server_path>' pairs, the first entry matching a given path is used. e.g. /home/project/incl=/opt/include,/home/project=/workarea/project
  • --pretty — Pretty-print JSON output
💖 That's the whole list. Every single one. Not skipping a single flag, periodt.

And that's a wrap, bestie! This was the manual page for clangd 14, dated May 2025, from the User Commands section — so go forth, let your editor be ✨iconic✨, and remember: use the plugin. Slay. 💅🦋🎀

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