gleam-lang/gleam

LSP: Renaming aliased value when alias has same name breaks alias

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#5681 opened on May 3, 2026

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 (2 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)Rust (21,417 stars) (960 forks)batch import
help wanted

Description

Sorry, I know the title is hard to understand. An example will make much more sense:

// foo.gleam
pub type Foo { Bar }
//             ^^^ (a)

// main.gleam
import foo.{Bar as Bar}
//      (b) ^^^    ^^^ (c)
pub fn main() {
    let _ = Bar
    //      ^^^ (d)
}

To reproduce: Move the cursor over (a) and trigger a rename to a new name.

Expected outcome: (a) and (b) change to the new value, (c) and (d) remain unchanged.

Actual outcome: (a), (b), and (d) change to the new value. (c) remains Bar. However, since (d) changes to the new value as well, the rename causes an unknown variable error at (d).

Gleam version: 1.16.0 OS: macOS Tahoe 26.4 (25E246) Editor: helix 25.07.1 (a05c151b)

Contributor guide

Tech stack
rust
Domain
developer experiencetooling
Issue type
bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
Gleam language syntaxunderstanding of LSP rename
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
60
Research direction
Investigate the LSP rename implementation in the Gleam compiler, likely in files related to code actions or rename handling. Look for how aliased imports are handled during rename operations. The issue describes a case where renaming a type definition also renames the import alias when the alias has the same name as the original. Focus on the logic that determines which identifiers to update when renaming a symbol.