Prevent a gutter icon from becoming a Zombie

abrooksv · February 9, 2026, 5:58pm

I have an ExternalToolPass that creates gutter icons based on loading remote data from an API. When editors are destroyed and revived by the Zombie/Necromancer system, the gutter icons flash in and you can’t interact with them and they then disappear again since the data is not present in the local caches.

Is there a way I am overlooking to tell the HighlightingNecromancer to skip those gutter icons? Do I need to make a custom HighlightSeverity with a low level (<10) level, what are the ramifications of doing that?

github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community

platform/lang-impl/src/com/intellij/codeInsight/daemon/impl/HighlightingNecromancer.kt

1e05f4447


      
          protected open fun shouldBuryHighlighter(highlighter: RangeHighlighterEx): Boolean {
            if (StickyLinesModelImpl.isStickyLine(highlighter)) {
              // hack for sticky lines since they are implemented via markupModel
              return true
            }
            if (highlighter.editorFilter != MarkupEditorFilter.EMPTY) {
              // skip highlighters with non-default filter to avoid appearing filtered highlighters
              return false
            }
            val severity = HighlightInfo.fromRangeHighlighter(highlighter)?.severity
            if (severity === HighlightInfoType.SYMBOL_TYPE_SEVERITY ||
                (severity != null && severity >= HighlightSeverity.INFORMATION)) {
              return true
            }
            val lineMarker = LineMarkersUtil.getLineMarkerInfo(highlighter)
            // or a line marker with a gutter icon
            return lineMarker?.icon != null
          }

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Prevent a gutter icon from becoming a Zombie

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