Installing and Using AbsInt Astrée with Visual Studio Code

AbsInt Astrée can be integrated with Visual Studio Code using the A3C extension, allowing developers to run Astrée analysis and review detected alarms directly within the editor.

Install and Configure A3C

1. Open Visual Studio Code and press Ctrl + Shift + X.
2. Search for the A3C / Astrée extension and install it.
3. Configure the Astrée installation path if prompted.
4. Open your C/C++ project folder in VS Code.

Once configured, A3C connects VS Code with Astrée and can automatically start an analysis when a source file is opened.

Running the Analysis

For Single Translation Unit analysis, go to:

Manage → Settings → Workspace → Extensions → A3C for C/C++ LSP Client

Change the view from Full Project to Single Translation Unit.

Now, when you open a source file, Astrée automatically starts the analysis. Opening another source file triggers a new analysis for that file.

Detected alarms appear directly in the editor as red squiggly indicators, with additional information available in the Problems and Output panels.

A single-click analyzes a file temporarily, while a double-click keeps the results available, allowing alarms from multiple files to be reviewed together.

You may also see a .dax file at the top level of an Astrée project:

Project/
├── project.dax
└── src/
    ├── main.c
    ├── module1.c
    └── module2.c

The .dax file is not source code. It contains the Astrée project/analysis configuration and defines how Astrée should analyze the source code. This is why it is typically kept at the project level rather than inside the source directory.

See It in Action

The complete workflow is also demonstrated at approximately the 26-minute mark of our webinar:

Integrating AbsInt Static Analysis Tool with the KEIL Studio and using VS code