How to setup VS Code for C++ with clangd support?

Question

Disclaimer: I am totally knew to VS Code, so, please, be gentle with me. :-)

I am trying to set up VS Code for C++.
However, I explicitly want to set it up so that it uses the Language Server Protocol to communicate with clangd when handling C++-files.

I already installed clangd on my (Ubuntu Linux) system and the official "vscode-clangd" extension from the VS Code market, and I also adjusted its settings so that clangd should be found by it.

However, now I am lost.
When I open a *.cpp or *.hpp file VS Code recommends some other extensions to me (e.g. the official Microsoft "C/C++" extension with IntelliSense support) but I do not see where and how clangd does help me at all.

Using Microsoft's "C/C++" extension seems to work out of the box but how can I use clangd?

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

I can share some of my configures.

Microsoft "C/C++" extension is great for debugging, I think you should install it.

Meanwhile, Clangd provides a more accurate result in finding references. So, My suggestion is to keep the official C/C++ extension for debugging but disable its IntelliSense. Put below lines to your settings.json

    "C_Cpp.intelliSenseEngine": "Disabled",
        
    "clangd.path": "/path/to/your/clangd",
    "clangd.arguments": ["-log=verbose", 
                         "-pretty", 
                         "--background-index", 
                         //"--query-driver=/bin/arm-buildroot-linux-gnueabihf-g++", //for cross compile usage
                         "--compile-commands-dir=/path/to/your/compile_commands_dir/"]

Always refer to the official website, there are more settings like filtering out compile param etc. When correctly configured, you will see the output of clangd from OUTPUT windows next to Problems and Terminal.