xDBML language support for VS Code

Syntax highlighting and editor support for the xDBML eXtended Database Markup Language.

xDBML is a unified, open markup language for describing the shape of structured and semi-structured data, plus the declarative metadata attached to that shape across heterogeneous storage technologies. xDBML is designed from the ground up for AI-assisted data modeling and AI-mediated schema interchange. A single xDBML document expresses entities, tables, attributes, columns, fields, data types, nested structures, relationships, polymorphism, named reusable types, classification tags, business-glossary references, validation constraints, synonyms, and the polyglot target-native vocabulary that real enterprise data architectures use.

It builds on DBML and extends it with first-class support for containers, nested types, polymorphism, and reference data.

What this extension does

• Syntax highlighting for .xdbml files, with distinct colors for declaration keywords, type expressions, scalar and BSON types, setting flags, setting keys, custom x_* properties, strings, comments, and cardinality operators.
• Editor affordances: comment toggling, bracket matching, auto-closing pairs (including single quotes, double quotes, backticks for expression literals), block-comment indentation, fold regions via // #region / // #endregion markers.
• Language icon in the VS Code status bar for .xdbml files.

What this extension does NOT do (yet)

• No language server. There's no parser-driven error reporting, no hover tooltips with type information, no go-to-definition, no refactoring. The highlighting is regex-based (TextMate) only.
• No code completion. VS Code's word-based completion still works against the open document, but there are no context-aware suggestions.
• No file icon theme. The extension contributes a language icon (visible in the status bar and language picker) but does not change the icons shown in the file explorer. To get a custom icon there, install a file-icon theme that supports .xdbml files.

A future release may add an LSP-backed language server with the features above. Subscribe to the xdbml-spec releases to be notified.

Getting started

1. Install this extension from the VS Code Marketplace.
2. Open any .xdbml file. Highlighting activates automatically.
3. For an interactive editor with live diagrams, try the xDBML playground in your browser.

Resources

• xDBML home
• 5-minute introduction
• Language specification
• Example schemas
• Playground
• GitHub repository

Feedback

Issues and feature requests go to the xdbml-spec issue tracker. Please mention this extension specifically in the issue title or description.

License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.

The grammar and language definition are part of the xdbml-spec repository, where the canonical TextMate grammar lives under tools/textmate/. This extension is a thin wrapper that packages the grammar for VS Code.