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Running KEITH

Setting up your eclipse

For everything not mentioned here refer to Getting Eclipse guide.

Use the installer go to advanced mode, add the KIELER url. Then select first pragmatics and after that semantics (that is very important).

Select the Theia stream for semantics and the Keith stream for pragmatics and use the latest eclipse if possible. Set the targetplatform to photon (or latest?) and finish.

Wait till everything installs and the setup tasks finish. If you have any problems in this stage refer to the Getting Eclipse guide.


The setup tasks for Modular Target will fail. Disable it after this happens and execute them again via Help>Perform Setup Tasks. Open the plug-in development perspective. Select working sets as top level elements. Run clean build. Several pragmatics projects have errors. Just close them and you will be fine.

To run the language server go to Run Configurations create a new eclipse application run configuration and select Run an application  and de.cau.cs.kieler.language.server.LanguageServer


You have to edit the arguments too. The Vm arguments host and port are added to connect the LS via socket.

The default port to which KEITH tries to connect is 5007.

Setting up a KEITH developer setup...

General requirements:

  • node
  • npm (whatever node installs)
  • yarn (latest version)
  • Python (2.7.X)
  • gcc, g++, and make (for native dependencies of some npm packages)
  • Visual Studio Code (latest version)
  • a cloned keith repository

... on linux:

(Theia has a guide for extension development that might be helpful)

install node 8:

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.33.5/install.sh | bash
nvm install 8

Install python if you haven't (remember: Python 2: (thumbs up), Python 3: (thumbs down)).

Install yarn (a package manager build on the package manager npm):


npm install -g yarn


... on windows:

Install node 8 for windows. I personally used the .msi.

Use that to install windows-build-tools by executing the command in an administrative powershell.

npm install -g windows-build-tools

This installs make, gcc, g++, python and all this. Somehow this does not really terminate. If nothing happens anymore it may be finished, just kill the process if it does not terminate.

All the installed executables are not in the path and that is okay. This is not needed since yarn/npm knows how to call them when needed.

Yarn can be downloaded and installed from here.

Known Problems in this step

If python3 was already installed this may cause some problems.

... on mac:

Get a package manager, something like brew.

Use brew to install all necessary stuff.

Apparently there is an issue with xcode-select: Theia developers recommend the following:

xcode-select --install

After doing this for your OS all that is missing is running KEITH (in developer setup) and setting up your eclipse for language server development).

Stuff that may help

Running the already build LS

Go to the latest Bamboo build and go to Artifacts.

Select Language Server Zip and download the LS and unpack it somewhere.

Locate the kieler.ini file. Depending on the OS it has a different location (linux; toplevel, windows, toplevel, mac: Content/Eclipse/kieler.ini)

Paste the following at the beginning of the ini-file:

-application 
de.cau.cs.kieler.language.server.LanguageServer 
-noSplash

Since an eclipse application is built, this is needed to start the LS without a splashscreen.

If you want to connect that LS via socket to your Theia application (KEITH) add the following to the vmargs:

-Dport=5007

5007 is the standard port KEITH is currently connecting to in socket mode. You can find this port in your Theia application at the following location:

Assume you are in the keith repository. Go to keith-app, you should see something like this:

Open the package.json. In the package.json are several scripts defined.

"scripts": {
        "prepare": "yarn run clean && yarn build",
        "clean": "theia clean",
        "build": "theia build --mode development",
        "start": "theia start --root-dir=../workspace",
        "socket": "node ./src-gen/backend/main.js --root-dir=../workspace --LSP_PORT=5007 --port=3000 --loglevel=debug",
        "watch": "theia build --watch --mode development"
    },


The LSP_PORT option is used to activate the connection via socket. It is also possible to specify a relative location to a LS via LS_PATH=<path to LS>.

How run KEITH in developer setup (socket)

Run the following to build and run KEITH in its developer setup (in socket mode, so the LS has to be started separately)

Running KEITH in the browser


yarn && cd keith-app && yarn run socket

yarn builds all the stuff. yarn run socket in keith-app starts the application. After an initial build via yarn you can run yarn watch  to watch the changes in your repository. In another console you run yarn run socket in keith-app. Now refreshing your browser is enough to apply the changes.

Per default the KEITH opens on localhost:3000.

If you previously build keith electron, you have to execute yarn run rebuild: browser 


Running KEITH as (unbundled) electron app

yarn && yarn run rebuild:electron && cd keith-app-electron && yarn run socket

yarn builds all the stuff. yarn run socket in keith-app-electron starts the application. After an initial build via yarn you can run yarn watch  to watch the changes in your repository. In another console you run yarn run socket in keith-app-electron. Now refreshing your browser is enough to apply the changes.

If you previously build keith electron, you have to execute yarn run rebuild: browser 

Known issues for windows:

nsfw.code not found: In the top level package.json exists a script called postinstall. Remove this on windows, delete the node_modules folder and rebuilt the application. This is a known issue of electron-builder.

Known issues on mac:

Since SWT is still used as part of the diagram synthesis (but is not relevant anymore). Since it is not called on the main thread this causes a deadlock. Therefore mac just does not work.

Known issues:

  • KEITH works in the browser/electron app, but not in the electron app/browser with the following error message:

    symbol lookup error: ... symbol lookup error: .../keith/node_modules/nsfw/build/Release/nsfw.node: undefined symbol: _ZN2v816FunctionTemplate3NewEPNS_7IsolateEPFvRKNS_20FunctionCallbackInfoINS_5ValueEEEENS_5LocalIS4_EENSA_INS_9SignatureEEEiNS_19ConstructorBehaviorENS_14SideEffectTypeE Done in 0.90s.

    • run yarn run rebuild:electron/browser after yarn to fix this.


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