# Elmid: Elm compiler error reporter (in spirit of ghcid)

**URL:** <https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/elmid-elm-compiler-error-reporter-in-spirit-of-ghcid/6939>\
**Category:** Show and Tell\
**Created:** [February 18, 2021, 10:26pm UTC](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/elmid-elm-compiler-error-reporter-in-spirit-of-ghcid/6939 "2021-02-18T22:26:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Janiczek](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.elm-lang.org/janiczek/32/4516_2.png) [@Janiczek](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/u/Janiczek)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 10:26pm UTC](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/elmid-elm-compiler-error-reporter-in-spirit-of-ghcid/6939/1 "2021-02-18T22:26:15Z")

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Hello folks,

I’ve written a CLI tool to show you Elm compiler errors in an expandable/collapsible fashion, automatically updated when you save.

A picture is worth a thousand words:

 ![elmid](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/elm_lang/original/2X/d/d735fea6b0266fafb5f870ccc67684da0e86dff2.gif)

So far it’s Linux-only, dependent on the `inotify` API. I don’t yet know how hard would it be to port it to other systems; perhaps you can help!

For more info, you can take look at [the README](https://github.com/Janiczek/elmid#elmid).

[Download v1.0.0 for Linux x86\_64](https://github.com/Janiczek/elmid/releases/download/1.0.0/elmid.Linux.x86_64)

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**Author:** ![allanderek](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.elm-lang.org/allanderek/32/1360_2.png) [@allanderek](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/u/allanderek)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 10:14am UTC](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/elmid-elm-compiler-error-reporter-in-spirit-of-ghcid/6939/2 "2021-02-19T10:14:26Z")

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This is an excellent idea. I wrote a [blog post](http://blog.poleprediction.com/posts/2021-01-18-terser-error-message/) talking about the error messages in Elm. Whilst these error messages are fantastic they aren’t short. Once you’ve been around Elm for a while, you don’t really need the full spiel. So I was suggesting a `--terse` flag, but this is perhaps even better. I ended the blog-post by stating " I say **would** propsose this, but I don’t actually think this should be done, I just don’t think it has enough bang for the buck of the involved effort." Your cli tool takes the effort from the Elm compiler, though I don’t know whether it will be difficult to maintain or not.  
Anyway brilliant stuff.

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**Author:** ![sashaafm](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.elm-lang.org/sashaafm/32/453_2.png) [@sashaafm](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/u/sashaafm)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 11:41am UTC](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/elmid-elm-compiler-error-reporter-in-spirit-of-ghcid/6939/3 "2021-02-19T11:41:50Z")

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Love it and I believe this can be extremely helpful. I understand your motivation to have this in a separate tool, but maybe we could take this as a PoC for an actual compiler feature?

Not sure how much effort it would be to open a PR with this feature in the compiler’s repo.

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/uploads/elm_lang/original/1X/50a05e53677a2c3b47776d7abd0f113eb50193a1.png) [@system](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2021, 11:42am UTC](https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/elmid-elm-compiler-error-reporter-in-spirit-of-ghcid/6939/4 "2021-03-01T11:42:03Z")

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