LID Tooling

Developer tools for the LID (Linked-Intent Development) methodology — keep design intent permanently linked to running code.

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LID answers one recurring problem: you know what the code does, but you’ve lost track of why it exists and whether it still does what the design said it should. This tooling enforces the link between requirements, design docs, and test citations — in your editor, your CI pipeline, and your AI workflow.

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Tools

Tool	What it does
VS Code extension	LSP diagnostics, hover, go-to-definition, rename, completion, visual Intent Navigator
IntelliJ IDEA plugin	LSP diagnostics, hover, go-to-definition, find references, rename, completion, and visual Intent Navigator for all JetBrains IDEs
lidc CLI	lidc check for CI, lidc init to scaffold new projects, lidc status for a quick summary
lid-mcp MCP server	13 tools so AI agents can read and write LID projects with full integrity guarantees

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Quick start

# 1. Install (macOS/Linux via Homebrew)
brew tap EtaCassiopeia/lid && brew install lid-tooling

# 2. Scaffold a new LID project
lidc init

# 3. Run coherence checks
lidc check

# 4. See spec coverage
lidc status

See Installation for all platforms and install methods.

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How it works

docs/
├── arrows/
│   ├── index.yaml            # segment graph — statuses, dependencies
│   └── <segment>/*.md        # arrow detail docs (HLDs, LLDs)
└── intent/
    └── <segment>/
        ├── <segment>-specs.md    # spec lines  (- [ ] **ID**: text)
        └── <segment>-design.md   # design docs

Source code cites specs with a line comment:

// @spec AUTH-002
fn validate_session_expiry(session: &Session) -> bool { ... }

lidc check enforces that every [x] spec has at least one citation, every @spec reference points to a real spec ID, and the segment graph is acyclic — in your editor and in CI.

See Project layout for the full schema reference.