Formatting

Experimental BoxLang formatting support, version requirements, and configuration files

Formatting support for BoxLang is currently experimental.

You must enable it in .bxlint.json before editor formatting becomes available.

Formatting requires BoxLang 1.13.0 or higher and bx-lsp 1.10.0 or higher.

How formatting works

Formatting support is powered by the BoxLang CLI format command.

If your BoxLang version is new enough, run this command to inspect the available options:

boxlang format -h

This is the same formatting foundation used by the language tooling.

Requirements

To use formatting, make sure all of the following are true:

• formatting is enabled in .bxlint.json

• BoxLang is 1.13.0 or newer

• bx-lsp is 1.10.0 or newer

If one of these requirements is missing, formatting may not appear or may fail to run.

Formatter style

The BoxLang formatter is inspired by cfformat and prettyprint.

The goal is consistent, automatic formatting with minimal manual cleanup.

Configuration files

The formatter introduces a BoxLang-native configuration file named .bxformat.json.

It is also compatible with cfformat.json.

That lets existing formatter configurations continue to work while giving BoxLang its own dedicated format going forward.

When to use the CLI

The CLI is the fastest way to verify that your runtime supports formatting.

Use it when you need to:

• confirm the format command is available

• inspect supported formatter options

• validate your installed BoxLang version

Related pages

For the broader language tooling stack, see Language Tools overview.