Hide library symbols from workspace symbol picker?

[ivxvm]

I'm really confused to how workspace symbol picker works. My workspace is a Rust project, I have two files with code. What I expect is that workspace symbol picker works the same as regular symbol picker but shows symbols from both files instead of just one. What I get instead is that workspace symbol picker also shows any symbols from any libraries I use from ~/.cargo/registry/src/. Also for some reason it doesn't prefetch all symbols and only starts showing something after you type at least few characters, which makes it impossible to use to browse all symbols.

Is there a way to have something like normal symbol picker but for all files in project and without and external dependencies, and such that it shows all symbols immediately and not only when you type?

~ $ hx --version
helix 25.07.1 (a05c151b)

~ $ rust-analyzer --version
rust-analyzer 1.95.0 (5980761 2026-04-14)

~ $ cat ~/.config/helix/config.toml

theme = "rose_pine"

[editor]
bufferline = "multiple"

[editor.cursor-shape]
insert = "bar"
normal = "block"
select = "underline"

[editor.soft-wrap]
enable = true

[keys.normal]
"}" = "goto_next_paragraph"
"{" = "goto_prev_paragraph"
S-down = ["extend_to_line_bounds", "delete_selection", "paste_after"]
S-up = ["extend_to_line_bounds", "delete_selection", "move_line_up", "paste_before"]
C-s = ["save_selection", ":write"]
C-r = ":reload-all"

[keys.insert]
C-s = ["save_selection", ":write", "normal_mode"]

[waddie]

LSP workspace symbol lookup can be a very expensive operation. 1m+ symbols isn’t uncommon in large projects. It’s designed more for querying than browsing everything.

Typing a character to start the query then deleting it will query for "" and give you “everything”, but only up to a limit. By default, rust-analyzer only returns the first 128 results, though you can increase that by setting rust-analyzer.workspace.symbol.search.limit

What it returns is up to the LSP, a workspace symbol request from Helix just looks like:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"workspace/symbol","params":{"query":"foo"},"id":28}

By default, rust-analyzer considers imports part of the workspace. You can change that by setting rust-analyzer.workspace.symbol.search.excludeImports. You can also exclude Cargo dependencies with cargo.noDeps

The Helix config might look like (restating the defaults):

[language-server.rust-analyzer.config]
inlayHints.bindingModeHints.enable = false
inlayHints.closingBraceHints.minLines = 10
inlayHints.closureReturnTypeHints.enable = "with_block"
inlayHints.discriminantHints.enable = "fieldless"
inlayHints.lifetimeElisionHints.enable = "skip_trivial"
inlayHints.typeHints.hideClosureInitialization = false
files.watcher = "server"
workspace.symbol.search.excludeImports = true
workspace.symbol.search.limit = 256
cargo.noDeps = true

In either your main languages.toml, or a project level .helix/languages.toml.

You might also, within results, be able to use Helix’s filtering to limit results to within your own code e.g. something like foo %p ^src or foo %p ^crates, if you don’t want to completely exclude imports/dependencies.

[ivxvm]

@waddie

Thanks, your config example does hide library symbols, but overall, this workspace symbol picker is still very weird. For example, typing a letter and deleting it to trigger it showing anything at all, brings a very limited list of some types and modules, and completely ignores all functions and most definitions I have in project. But if I type letters "rend" it will start showing all the "render" functions I have. It doesn't show them with just "ren" or "re" or "r" or "" for some reason. Screenshots attached.

LSP workspace symbol lookup can be a very expensive operation. 1m+ symbols isn’t uncommon in large projects. It’s designed more for querying than browsing everything.

I believe many (most?) projects people work on are small or medium scale projects, so it would be nice to have an option to just immediately show everything in the project just like with normal symbol picker. Wouldn't be a problem at all for projects with hundreds or even few thousands symbols I think.

Here are screenshot examples of regular symbol picker vs workspace symbol picker. First screenshot is normal symbol picker, second and third are workspace symbol picker.

[waddie]

For example, typing a letter and deleting it to trigger it showing anything at all, brings a very limited list of some types and modules, and completely ignores all functions and most definitions I have in project.

This is rust-analyzer config again, not Helix. workspace.symbol.search.kind defaults to only_types. Set it to all_symbols.

[ivxvm]

This is rust-analyzer config again, not Helix. workspace.symbol.search.kind defaults to only_types. Set it to all_symbols.

Thanks, this does fix the issue.

[ivxvm]

@waddie
Wait, but now I don't even have autocomplete and docs for any symbols on space+k for example, what is even the point then 😅 I guess I'd like to have two separate LSPs: for workspace symbol picker and for code editing... I reopen this just in case, but feel free to close. I don't know how or where to properly discuss it, but I don't think the original idea is unreasonable feature to ask.

[waddie]

I understand the frustration, but I think the only thing here that’s potentially a Helix issue is whether the workspace symbol picker should open with an empty query, or with no query.

Given that, for even a mid-sized Rust project, opening with an empty query would return precisely 128 more-or-less random results, the decision to open with no query until you type seems like a fair one to me.

If you want more granular options for what’s included in the response, that really needs to happen in rust-analyzer, not Helix. Helix is just sending a query string to the server and getting a list of matches back. As I understand it, the project policy is to adhere to the LSP standard, never implementing LSP-specific workarounds. And any LSP config in the languages.toml Helix ships is the bare minimum to get it working, not opinionated settings.

Maybe the rust-analyzer team could add a rust-analyzer.workspace.symbol.search.excludeCargoDeps option, so Cargo dependencies could be included in the LSP’s analysis generally, but excluded from the search.

From the Helix end, all you can really do is filter the results it returns based on path.

[ivxvm]

@waddie

I understand the frustration, but I think the only thing here that’s potentially a Helix issue is whether the workspace symbol picker should open with an empty query, or with no query.

From the Helix end, all you can really do is filter the results it returns based on path.

Could also be an option to specify the "default search query" when opening workspace symbol picker. So it could be false (default) or string, when it's false, it's empty and doesn't send anything until you type, when it's string it does send the query. So ultimately both things I want could be achieved by setting it to "%p ^src".

[waddie]

Yeah, maybe.

Right now, you could do this:

[keys.normal]
space.C-s = "@ S %p ^src<C-a>"

You’ll still have to type something to trigger the query, but it’ll save typing the filter.

This doesn’t work with a lot of pickers, the input ends up in the buffer for some reason rather than being captured by the picker. But it seems fine with workspace symbols. (Come to think of it, possibly precisely because the workspace symbol picker has no work to do when it opens, so it happens instantly?)