How to Contribute (original) (raw)

Contributing to Visual Studio Code

There are many ways to contribute to the Visual Studio Code project: logging bugs, submitting pull requests, reporting issues, and creating suggestions.

After cloning and building the repo, check out the issues list. Issues labeled help wanted are good issues to submit a PR for. Issues labeled good first issue are great candidates to pick up if you are in the code for the first time. If you are contributing significant changes, or if the issue is already assigned to a specific month milestone, please discuss with the assignee of the issue first before starting to work on the issue.

Prerequisites

In order to download necessary tools, clone the repository, and install dependencies via npm, you need network access.

Note

You should clone into a path WITHOUT spaces to avoid issues when compiling native modules.

You'll need the following tools:

Troubleshooting

Make sure you cloned vscode into a folder without any spaces in the path hierarchy.

In case of issues, try deleting the contents of ~/.node-gyp (alternatively ~/.cache/node-gyp for Linux, ~/Library/Caches/node-gyp/ for macOS, or %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\node-gyp for Windows) first and then run git clean -xfd and then try again.

If you are on Windows or Linux 64 bit systems and would like to compile to 32 bit, you'll need to set the npm_config_arch environment variable to ia32 before running npm. This will compile all native node modules for a 32 bit architecture. Similarly, when cross-compiling for ARM, set npm_config_arch to arm.

Note

For more information on how to install NPM modules globally on UNIX systems without resorting to sudo, refer to this guide.

Warning

If you have Visual Studio 2019 installed, you may face issues when using the default version of node-gyp. If you have Visual Studio 2019 installed, you may need to follow the solutions here.

Missing spectre mitigated libraries on Windows

If you are using npm >= 10.2.3 or node-gyp >= 10.0.0, then you might see error when building native modules of this project

Spectre-mitigated libraries are required for this project.

To fix this error open Visual Studio Installer, add the following components corresponding to the architecture you are building for (x64/ARM/ARM64) and restart your build session

For the build tools individual components, you may need to specify the version, e.g. v14.41-17.11, rather than (latest), but pick a version that is not out of support.

If you receive errors building native modules with node-gyp with clang enable debug logging via export CXX="c++ -v" to receive a better error message.

Development container

Alternatively, you can avoid local dependency installation as this repository includes a Visual Studio Code Remote - Containers / Codespaces development container.

Docker / the Codespace should have at least 4 Cores and 6 GB of RAM (8 GB recommended) to run the full build. See the development container README for more information.

If you'd like to contribute to the list of available development containers in the Remote - Containers extension, you can check out the Contributing documentation in the vscode-dev-containers repo.

Enable Commit Signing

If you're a community member, feel free to jump over this step.

Otherwise, if you're a member of the VS Code team, follow the Commit Signing guide.

Build and Run

If you want to understand how VS Code works or want to debug an issue, you'll want to get the source, build it, and run the tool locally.

Getting the sources

First, fork the VS Code repository so that you can make a pull request. Then, clone your fork locally:

git clone https://github.com/<<<your-github-account>>>/vscode.git

Occasionally you will want to merge changes in the upstream repository (the official code repo) with your fork.

cd vscode
git checkout main
git pull https://github.com/microsoft/vscode.git main

Manage any merge conflicts, commit them, and then push them to your fork.

Note

The microsoft/vscode repository contains a collection of GitHub Actions that help us with triaging issues. As you probably don't want these running on your fork, you can disable Actions for your fork via https://github.com/<<Your Username>>/vscode/settings/actions.

Build

Install and build all of the dependencies using npm:

Then you have two options:

The incremental builder will do an initial full build and will display a message that includes the phrase "Finished compilation" once the initial build is complete. The builder will watch for file changes and compile those changes incrementally, giving you a fast, iterative coding experience.

Troubleshooting:

If the build step fails, or if the built version fails to run (see next section), run git clean -xfd in your vscode folder, then re-run npm install.

Errors and Warnings

Errors and warnings will show in the console while developing VS Code. If you use VS Code to develop VS Code, errors and warnings are shown in the status bar at the bottom left of the editor. You can view the error list using View | Errors and Warnings or pressing Ctrl+P and then ! (CMD+P and ! on macOS).

Tip

You don't need to stop and restart the development version of VS Code after each change. You can just execute Reload Window from the command palette. We like to assign the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+R (CMD+R on macOS) to this command.

Run

To test the changes, you launch a development version of VS Code on the workspace vscode, which you are currently editing.

To test changes with a remote, use the "TestResolver" in your Code - OSS window which creates a fake remote window. Search Command Palette for TestResolver. More information is at https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/162874#issuecomment-1271774905.

Desktop

Running on Electron with extensions run in NodeJS:

macOS and Linux

./scripts/code.sh ./scripts/code-cli.sh # for running CLI commands (eg --version)

Windows

.\scripts\code.bat .\scripts\code-cli.bat

Tip

If you receive an error stating that the app is not a valid Electron app, it probably means you didn't run npm run watch first.

VS Code for the Web

Extensions and UI run in the browser.

Tip

Besides npm run watch also run npm run watch-web to build the web bits for the built-in extensions.

macOS and Linux

Windows

Code Server Web

UI in the browser, extensions run in code server (NodeJS):

macOS and Linux

./scripts/code-server.sh --launch

Windows

.\scripts\code-server.bat --launch

You can identify the development version of VS Code ("Code - OSS") by the following icon in the Dock or Taskbar:

VS Code default icon

Debugging

VS Code has a multi-process architecture and your code is executed in different processes.

The render process runs the UI code inside the Shell window. To debug code running in the render you can either use VS Code or the Chrome Developer Tools.

Using VS Code

Using the Chrome Developer Tools

sourcemaps

The extension host process runs code implemented by a plugin. To debug extensions (including those packaged with VS Code) which run in the extension host process, you can use VS Code itself. Switch to the Debug viewlet, choose the Attach to Extension Host configuration, and press F5.

The search process can be debugged, but must first be started. Before attempting to attach, start a search by pressing Ctrl+P (CMD+P on macOS), otherwise, attaching will fail and time out.

Automated Testing

Run the unit tests directly from a terminal by running ./scripts/test.sh from the vscode folder (scripts\test on Windows). The test README has complete details on how to run and debug tests, as well as how to produce coverage reports.

We also have automated UI tests. The smoke test README has all the details.

Unit Testing

Run the tests directly from a terminal by running ./scripts/test.sh from the vscode folder (scripts\test on Windows). The test README has complete details on how to run and debug tests, as well as how to produce coverage reports.

Linting

We use eslint for linting our sources. You can run eslint across the sources by calling npm run eslint from a terminal or command prompt. You can also run npm run eslint as a VS Code task by pressing Ctrl+P (CMD+P on macOS) and entering task eslint.

To lint the source as you make changes you can install the eslint extension.

Extensions

The Visual Studio Marketplace is not available from the vscode open source builds. If you need to use or debug an extension you can check to see if the extension author publishes builds in their repository (check the Builds page) or if it is open source you can clone and build the extension locally. Once you have the .VSIX, you can "side load" the extension either through the command line or using Install from VSIX command in the Extensions View command drop-down (see more on command line extension management).

Work Branches

Even if you have push rights on the Microsoft/vscode repository, you should create a personal fork and create feature branches there when you need them. This keeps the main repository clean and your personal workflow cruft out of sight.

Pull Requests

Before we can accept a pull request from you, you'll need to sign a Contributor License Agreement (CLA). It is an automated process and you only need to do it once.

To enable us to quickly review and accept your pull requests, always create one pull request per issue and link the issue in the pull request. Never merge multiple requests in one unless they have the same root cause. Be sure to follow our Coding Guidelines and keep code changes as small as possible. Avoid pure formatting changes to code that has not been modified otherwise. Pull requests should contain tests whenever possible.

Introducing usage of new Electron API with a PR

A pull request that depends on Electron API that VS Code is currently not using comes with a certain risk and may be rejected. Whenever we update Electron, there is a chance that less popular Electron APIs break and it is very hard to find out upfront. Once a PR lands in VS Code, the role of maintaining the feature moves to the team and as such we have to follow up with upstream components to ensure the feature is still supported. As such, as a rule of thumb:

Where to Contribute

Check out the full issues list for a list of all potential areas for contributions. Note that just because an issue exists in the repository does not mean we will accept a contribution to the core editor for it. There are several reasons we may not accept a pull request like:

To improve the chances to get a pull request merged you should select an issue that is labelled with the help-wanted or bug labels. If the issue you want to work on is not labelled with help-wanted or bug, you can start a conversation with the issue owner asking whether an external contribution will be considered.

To avoid multiple pull requests resolving the same issue, let others know you are working on it by saying so in a comment.

Spell check errors

Pull requests that fix spell check errors in translatable strings (strings in nls.localize(...) calls) are welcomed but please make sure it doesn't touch multiple feature areas, otherwise it will be difficult to review. Pull requests only fixing spell check errors in source code are not recommended.

Packaging

VS Code can be packaged for the following platforms: win32-ia32 | win32-x64 | darwin-x64 | darwin-arm64 | linux-ia32 | linux-x64 | linux-arm

These gulp tasks are available:

Tip

Run gulp via npm to avoid potential out of memory issues, for example npm run gulp vscode-linux-x64

See also: Cross-Compiling for Debian-based Linux

Suggestions

We're also interested in your feedback for the future of VS Code. You can submit a suggestion or feature request through the issue tracker. To make this process more effective, we're asking that these include more information to help define them more clearly.

Translations

We accept feedback on translations in language packs via GitHub issues in our localization repo that contains our currently supported language packs.

Discussion Etiquette

In order to keep the conversation clear and transparent, please limit discussion to English and keep things on topic with the issue. Be considerate to others and try to be courteous and professional at all times.