A number of commonly used minor features are listed in the following format:
EP: fully.qualified.extensionPointName â Extension Point Name (must be specified in plugin.xml). Click to browse usages in existing implementations of open-source plugins.
com.extensionPoint.class description text â Extension Point class/interface to provide functionality
See also LangExtensionPoints.xml to discover more Language-related Extension Points as well as the general guide Explore the IntelliJ Platform API.
Editing Brace MatchingEP: com.intellij.lang.braceMatcher
PairedBraceMatcher returns an array of brace pairs (BracePair) specifying the characters for the opening and closing braces and the lexer token types for these characters. (In principle, it is possible to return multi-character tokens, like "begin" and "end", as the start and end tokens of a brace pair. The IDE will match such braces, but the highlighting for such braces will not be entirely correct.)
Certain types of braces can be marked as structural. Structural braces have higher priority than regular braces: they are matched with each other even if there are unmatched braces of different types between them. An opening non-structural brace is not matched with a closing one if one of them is inside a pair of matched structural braces and another is outside. See also Recognizing Complex Multi-Block Expressions.
"Heavy" Brace MatchingEP: com.intellij.heavyBracesHighlighter
If the brace matching is "too heavy" and should not be executed in EDT, implement HeavyBraceHighlighter.
EP: com.intellij.lang.quoteHandler
To support the Insert pair quote feature, provide QuoteHandler. In most cases, SimpleTokenSetQuoteHandler base implementation will be suitable.
EP: com.intellij.lang.commenter
Commenter returns the prefix for the line comment, and the prefix and suffix for the block comment if supported by the language. For more complex logic, use SelfManagingCommenter.
EP: com.intellij.lang.foldingBuilder
FoldingBuilder returns the list of foldable text ranges (as an array of FoldingDescriptor objects), the replacement text which is shown for each range when it is folded, and the default state of each folding region (folded or unfolded).
EP: com.intellij.joinLinesHandler
JoinLinesHandlerDelegate allows extending support smart/semantic (e.g., String literal split on multiple lines).
EP: com.intellij.lang.smartEnterProcessor
SmartEnterProcessor handles (e.g., autocomplete missing semicolon/parentheses).
EP: com.intellij.moveLeftRightHandler
Return children of the given element from MoveElementLeftRightHandler for , e.g., method call parameters. Alternatively, implement PsiListLikeElement in the PSI element.
EP: com.intellij.statementUpDownMover
StatementUpDownMover allows for customizing the behavior of moving statements up and down. This can be used to keep code syntactically correct when moving code in the editor, e.g., when moving a variable declaration.
EP: com.intellij.listSplitJoinContext
ListSplitJoinContext needs to be implemented to define the exact behavior of splitting and joining list-like constructs in a language. The UI will show implementations of this EP as an intention action at appropriate locations. Developers can use the abstract classes in DefaultListSplitJoinContext for their implementation.
EP: com.intellij.codeBlockSupportHandler
CodeBlockSupportHandler allows providing text ranges for more complex code blocks like, e.g., in if/elsif/else blocks. It is used to highlight markers and keywords if one is under the cursor, and for navigation to the beginning/end of blocks. See also Brace Matching.
EP: com.intellij.referenceInjector
ReferenceInjector allows users to inject pre-defined references (e.g., "Encoding", "File Reference") into PsiLanguageInjectionHost elements (IntelliLang plugin required).
EP: com.intellij.problemHighlightFilter, com.intellij.problemFileHighlightFilter
ProblemHighlightFilter and the com.intellij.problemFileHighlightFilter extension point (which implements Condition<VirtualFile>) are used to filter out files that should not be error-highlighted because they are, e.g., outside the current project scope. Note that these filters should be permissive and only prevent highlighting for files that are absolutely known to be outside the scope.
EP: com.intellij.highlightUsagesHandlerFactory
HighlightUsagesHandlerFactory allows highlighting e.g., Exit Points or Exceptions. Can be DumbAware API (2024.3+).
EP: com.intellij.declarationRangeHandler
DeclarationRangeHandler provides for custom languages with structure view implementation based on a TreeBasedStructureViewBuilder.
EP: com.intellij.breadcrumbsInfoProvider
BreadcrumbsProvider allows for language-specific breadcrumbs. Sticky Lines feature also uses this data.
ParserDefinition.getCommentTokens() must return the set of tokens treated as comments to populate the TODO tool window.
EP: com.intellij.colorProvider
ElementColorProvider renders a gutter icon for an element containing color information.
EP: com.intellij.include.provider
FileIncludeProvider provides information about include statements resolving to files (e.g., <xi:include> in XML). Including/included files can then be obtained via FileIncludeManager.
EP: com.intellij.completion.plainTextSymbol
PlainTextSymbolCompletionContributor provides a simple way to extract lookup elements from a file so that users have completion available in, e.g., plain text editors like VCS commit messages.
EP: com.intellij.readerModeMatcher
ReaderModeMatcher provides a way to decide if files are shown in the correct mode: reader mode vs. normal editor mode. Please see the documentation to get familiar with reader mode.
EP: com.intellij.qualifiedNameProvider
QualifiedNameProvider provides features like copying and pasting references of FQN for, e.g., classes, functions, or methods. Therefore, the QualifiedNameProvider implementation needs to provide logic to convert from and to FQN.
Extend from CopyPathProvider action (or DumbAwareCopyPathProvider if no indexes are needed) and return a custom (language-specific) path from getPathToElement(). Register the action with the popup menu group <add-to-group group-id="CopyReferencePopupGroup"/>.
EP: com.intellij.testSourcesFilter
TestSourcesFilter allows for telling the IDE that a file is a test file; even it's not located in a directory marked as test root. This can be used in situations where test files are located next to source files. If these files can be distinguished either by filename or content from source files, implementing this EP will mark them as test files for the IDE.
EP: com.intellij.nameSuggestionProvider
NameSuggestionProvider provides name suggestions for the given element, e.g., for Rename refactoring.
EP: com.intellij.suggestedRefactoringSupport
SuggestedRefactoringSupport provides functionality for suggesting rename and change signature refactorings for custom languages.
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14 May 2025
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