Audit Refactorex features

[mhanberg]

Description

In my experience, I can't seem to trigger many of the refactorex features that we included into expert.

We need to audit all the features to confirm they work, and document them in the docs (https://github.com/expert-lsp/expert-lsp.org).

[iurimateus]

Most codeactions are a bit finicky/strict in how they can be triggered.

For example, to collapse an fn x -> x end anonymous function, you first need to select the entire fn ... end body before triggering the action. (this also hurts discoverability. It'd be nicer being able to trigger it by just positioning the cursor at/or inside the expression..)

[leonqadirie]

I'll be on flights ~16h over the weekend and might be able to spare time on this but request guidance first.

Is there a recommended way to audit them and document the findings?
For example, would I just go through the list, attempt to trigger them, and document which actions worked under what circumstances, or should the audit include actually diving into the individual actions code?

[mhanberg]

I'll be on flights ~16h over the weekend and might be able to spare time on this but request guidance first.

Is there a recommended way to audit them and document the findings? For example, would I just go through the list, attempt to trigger them, and document which actions worked under what circumstances, or should the audit include actually diving into the individual actions code?

The former.

Go the list documented by refactorex and attempt to invoke them given the instructions and see if they work.

[leonqadirie]

Before documentation, I'd like to discuss the probability of my findings being valid and not obviously caused by my setup.
(My on-the-run internet connection is too slow for setting up another valid environment)

Findings in short:

• all 'selection'-based refactorings work, they just are very narrow in the selections that trigger them
• I could not get any other kind of trigger to work, suggesting a common issue in either the trigger identification or my setup. Only adding an underscore to an unused variable works, but I suspect this is not the actual RefactorEx logic.
• I had quite severe formatting issues using the alias-related refactorings, up to the point of crashing the editor once.

Notable peculiarities about my setup:

• helix built on latest main (the table below uses the VSCode commands, I used helix' equivalents)
• using nushell
• macOS 26.2

---

Refactoring	Scope	Target	Command	Comment
Expand aliases	alias	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, requires to select the whole alias. Bug: it is possible to expand an already expanded alias, resulting in invalid code.
Extract alias	alias	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, selection of Module name and/or function name
Inline alias	alias	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select an instance of the alias
Merge aliases	alias	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, requires to select all aliases to merge
Sort nested aliases	alias	line	refactor (ctrl+.)	Could not get it to work
Convert from with	case	line	refactor (ctrl+.)	Could not get it to work
Convert to with	case	line	refactor (ctrl+.)	Could not get it to work
Extract constant	constant	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select independently valid code without variables
Inline constant	constant	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select full instance of constant
Rename constant	constant	at symbol	rename (F2)	Could not get it to work
Expand anonymous function	function	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select whole collapsed anonymous function
Extract anonymous function	function	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select whole anonymous function
Extract function	function	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select code independently valid as a function
Collapse anonymous function	function	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select whole non-collapsed anonymous function
Inline function	function	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select whole function call
Rename function	function	at symbol	rename (F2)	Could not get it to work
Use keyword syntax	function	line	refactor (ctrl+.)	Could not get it to work
Use regular syntax	function	line	refactor (ctrl+.)	Could not get it to work
Extract guard	guard	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select exactly the full propositional part of the guard logic
Inline guard	guard	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select exactly the full guard to inline within the function
Rename guard	guard	at symbol	rename (F2)	Could not get it to work
Use keyword syntax	if else	line	refactor (ctrl+.)	Could not get it to work
Use regular syntax	if else	line	refactor (ctrl+.)	Could not get it to work
Introduce IO.inspect	pipeline	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select whole independently valid code
Introduce pipe	pipeline	line	refactor (ctrl+.)	Could not get it to work
Remove IO.inspect	pipeline	line	refactor (ctrl+.)	Could not get it to work
Remove pipe	pipeline	line	refactor (ctrl+.)	Could not get it to work
Extract variable	variable	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select whole independently valid code
Inline variable	variable	selection	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, must select whole variable
Rename variable	variable	at symbol	rename (F2)	Could not get it to work
Underscore not used	variable	line	refactor (ctrl+.)	Works, but shows different action name <- probably not RefactorEx logic