Flint

Flint brings real IDE workflows to Ignition SCADA/HMI development. Instead of editing every script and view inside the Designer, you work on your Ignition project files in VS Code — with a project-aware browser, Jython language intelligence, a breakpoint debugger, and live tools that reach into a running Designer and gateway.

Flint is two open-source components (both MIT licensed):

Component	What it is	Where to get it
Flint for Ignition	VS Code extension (Keith-gamble.ignition-flint)	VS Code Marketplace
Flint Designer Bridge	Ignition module (dev.bwdesigngroup.flint.FlintDesignerBridge)	GitHub Releases

The extension is useful on its own for browsing, editing, and searching project files. Installing the Designer Bridge module unlocks the connected features: gateway-backed language intelligence, the debugger, the Script Console, the live Tag Browser, and Perspective profiling.

What Flint can do

Edit

• Project Browser — browse gateways, projects, and resources (scripts, named queries, Perspective views, style classes, session config) as a typed tree, including inherited resources from parent projects.
• Resource operations — create, rename, duplicate, and delete resources with correct resource.json metadata, validated against templates.
• Embedded-script editing — decode a Jython script embedded in a resource JSON file into a real Python editor tab; saving re-encodes it in place. Includes Git merge-conflict helpers for script fields.
• Search — resource-name and full-text search across all configured projects, with regex support and jump-to-line results.

Language intelligence

• Gateway-backed Jython LSP — completion, hover, go-to-definition, find references, syntax diagnostics, and document/workspace symbols for Python 2.7 project scripts, powered by a language server running inside the gateway. system.* completions come from the live gateway, so they match your installed modules. No Designer required.
• Completion fallbacks and Ignition API stubs for offline work.

Debug

• Breakpoint debugger — a native VS Code debugger (launch type flint) that runs scripts in the real Designer, Gateway, or Perspective Jython interpreter with line and conditional breakpoints, stepping, call stacks, variable inspection, and expression evaluation. See limitations.
• Script Console — a live Jython REPL inside VS Code against Designer, Gateway, or Perspective scopes, with persistent session state.

Live tools

• Tag Browser — browse providers, tags, and UDTs with live values and quality; read, write, create, edit, and delete tags from VS Code.
• Perspective profiling — static view analysis plus live view and page binding metrics from a running session.
• Designer navigation — open a resource in the Designer directly from the VS Code tree.

Automation

• Headless gateway API — the module exposes an authenticated HTTP JSON-RPC endpoint (/data/flint/rpc) on the gateway, offering script execution, tag/UDT/view operations, and the full language server with no Designer running. See the JSON-RPC reference and security model.

Architecture

The extension talks to a running Designer over a localhost WebSocket (debugging, Script Console, Tag Browser, Perspective tools), and the Designer relays gateway-scope operations to the gateway. Independently, the extension's language server and the headless API talk to the gateway directly over HTTP with an API token — no Designer needed for those.

Connectivity tiers

Prerequisites

Flint features fall into three tiers. Each feature page states which tier it needs.

Tier	What it needs	Example features
Works offline	Project files on disk + flint.config.json	Project Browser, resource operations, search, embedded-script decode, static view analysis
Gateway + API token	Reachable gateway with the Designer Bridge module installed	Jython LSP (completion, hover, definition, references, diagnostics), headless API
Designer Bridge + running Designer	Module installed and a Designer open on the same machine	Debugger, Script Console, Tag Browser, live Perspective profiling

Supported versions

Requirement	Version
VS Code	1.102 or later
Ignition (8.1 line)	8.1.44 or later — install Flint-Designer-Bridge-<version>-8.1.modl
Ignition (8.3 line)	8.3.1 or later — install Flint-Designer-Bridge-<version>-8.3.modl

Module releases ship one artifact per Ignition major line; install the one that matches your gateway. See Module installation.

Get started

1. Installation — install the extension and the Designer Bridge module.
2. Quick start — run the Setup Wizard and browse your first project.
3. Connecting a Designer — launch the Designer and let Flint auto-discover it.

If something does not behave as expected, see Troubleshooting.