In principle, other editors would work as well, but you should have VS Code ready for running and testing your extension either way. It supports TypeScript out of the box and comes with special tools to run and debug your extension in another instance. Its usage will be explained later on in this post.ĭevelopment is best done in VS Code itself. The files contained in this structure are usually very verbose and not friendly for humans to read or write so there’s an official build tool to generate such ZIP files from source code: vsce. They provide functions for VS Code to call when certain events happen, and can programmatically interact with (some parts of) VS Code in those functions.Įxtensions are distributed as ZIP files with a specific file and folder structure inside. Extensions are basically programs, written in JavaScript or TypeScript, which hook into various parts of VS Code.

What is a VS Code extension?īefore we jump into coding, we should clear up what a VS Code extension is on a technical level.

This guide will walk you through the basics of getting started with Visual Studio Code extension development.

So inevitably, there comes a point where you want to write your own extension. While the base program provides a framework for an IDE, all of the language support and special features are delivered as extensions, which makes it easy to extend and customize your installation. It has been voted the most popular IDE of 2021 by respondents of the StackOverflow developer survey, and its appeal is clear as ever. Most developers have used Visual Studio Code at some point in their careers.

Visual studio code extensions 2021