I use Visual Studio Code for work and personal projects. It has been my main editor for years, across several languages and ecosystems.

Since I started using coding agents and chat-based interfaces, I've also wanted a more focused environment without the panels, notifications, and status updates. This is especially useful when I'm reading a book and reimplementing its examples. I've been using Helix, a terminal-based code editor, for this kind of work.

I previously configured Helix for Go but didn't record the steps. This note covers my Python setup: LSP support, type checking with ty, formatting and linting with Ruff, and debugging with debugpy.

I use macOS, so some paths and shell commands are platform-specific. The Helix configuration should work on other operating systems as well.

Start by checking Helix's Python configuration:

hx --health python

In my case, the output looks like this:

Configured language servers:
  ✘ ty: 'ty' not found in $PATH
  ✘ ruff: 'ruff' not found in $PATH
  ✘ jedi: 'jedi-language-server' not found in $PATH
  ✘ pylsp: 'pylsp' not found in $PATH
Configured debug adapter: None
Configured formatter: None
Tree-sitter parser: ✓
Highlight queries: ✓
Textobject queries: ✓
Indent queries: ✓

No language servers or formatters are available yet, but the Tree-sitter parser and queries are configured. I use uv to install Ruff and ty:

uv tool install ruff
uv tool install ty

This installs Ruff and ty as command-line tools. On macOS, uv tool install puts executables in a user bin directory that must be on PATH. The exact path depends on your setup; a common configuration is:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

If needed, update the shell configuration and then check that both tools are available:

which ruff
which ty

If which prints nothing, Helix will not find the tools either. Check the configuration again:

hx --health python

The output should now look like this:

Configured language servers:
  ✓ ty: /Users/akrisanov/.local/bin/ty
  ✓ ruff: /Users/akrisanov/.local/bin/ruff
  ✘ jedi: 'jedi-language-server' not found in $PATH
  ✘ pylsp: 'pylsp' not found in $PATH
Configured debug adapter: None
Configured formatter: None
Tree-sitter parser: ✓
Highlight queries: ✓
Textobject queries: ✓
Indent queries: ✓

Open the Helix language configuration, usually ~/.config/helix/languages.toml, and add:

[[language]]
name = "python"
language-servers = ["ruff", "ty"]
auto-format = true
formatter = { command = "ruff", args = ["format", "-"] }

[language-server.ruff]
command = "ruff"
args = ["server"]

[language-server.ty]
command = "ty"
args = ["server"]

For debugging, install debugpy with pip:

pip install debugpy

Then append this configuration to languages.toml:

[language.debugger]
name = "debugpy"
transport = "stdio"
command = "python3"
args = ["-m", "debugpy.adapter"]

[[language.debugger.templates]]
name = "source"
request = "launch"
completion = [
  { name = "entrypoint", completion = "filename", default = "." }
]
args = { mode = "debug", program = "{0}" }