Visual Studio Code: Difference between revisions

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{{note|Visual Studio Code is [[FAQ/unfree|unfree]] because its license prohibits distribution. See the [[FAQ/unfree]] page to install unfree software.}}{{Infobox application

| name = Visual Studio Code

'''Visual Studio Code''' is a cross-platform text editor developed by Microsoft, built on the Electron framework.

For the free distribution of the VS Code codebase (without MS branding, telemetry, and [https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/ extension marketplace] replaced by [https://open-vsx.org/ Open VSX]) see [[VSCodium]].

<syntaxHighlight lang=nix>

environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ vscode ];

</syntaxHighlight>

Extensions can be managed using {{Nixpkg|pkgs/applications/editors/vscode/with-extensions.nix|vscode-with-extensions}} :

<syntaxhighlight lang="nix">environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [

   (vscode-with-extensions.override {

];</syntaxhighlight>

Some examples here: [https://github.com/search?type=code&q=language:Nix+&#x22;extensionFromVscodeMarketplace&#x22; GitHub Search - type:code language:Nix "extensionFromVscodeMarketplace"]

{{Note|For fetching the sha256 string you can use [https://nix.dev/manual/nix/stable/command-ref/new-cli/nix3-store-prefetch-file <code>nix store prefetch-file</code>] like so:

<syntaxhighlight lang="console">nix store prefetch-file marketplace.visualstudio.com/_apis/public/gallery/publishers/<publisher>/vsextensions/<extension>/<version>/vspackage</syntaxhighlight>

Example:

<syntaxhighlight lang="console">nix store prefetch-file https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/_apis/public/gallery/publishers/ms-vscode-remote/vsextensions/remote-ssh-edit/0.47.2/vspackage</syntaxhighlight>}}

<code>extensionsFromVscodeMarketplace</code> is a manual way to fetch extensions. However, to keep updated from upstream, [https://github.com/nix-community/nix-vscode-extensions nix-community/nix-vscode-extensions] provides the Nix expressions for the majority of available extensions from Open VSX and VSCode Marketplace. A GitHub Action updates the extensions daily. Similarly, [https://github.com/nix-community/nix4vscode nix-community/nix4vscode] provides a Nix overlay for VSCode Marketplace and Open VSX extensions.

=== Home Manager ===

<syntaxhighlight lang="nix">programs.vscode = {

};</syntaxhighlight>

* See for more options: [https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/options.xhtml#opt-programs.vscode.enable Home Manager Manual: Options - programs.vscode]

* Search for extensions with configurations: [https://search.nixos.org/packages?type=packages&query=vscode-extensions NixOS Search: vscode-extensions]

=== Nix-env ===

{{Warning|Use of nix-env is unreproducible and thus discouraged and not recommended}}<syntaxhighlight lang="console">nix-env -iA nixos.vscode</syntaxhighlight>

== Use VS Code extensions without additional configuration ==

With {{Nixpkg|pkgs/applications/editors/vscode/generic.nix|vscode.fhs}}, the editor launches inside a [[wikipedia:Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard|FHS]] compliant chroot environment using {{Manual|nixpkgs|sec-fhs-environments|<code>buildFHSEnv</code>}}. This reintroduces directories such as <code>/bin</code>, <code>/lib</code>, and <code>/usr</code>, which allows for extensions which ship pre-compiled binaries to work with little to no additional nixification.

{{note|{{Manual|nixpkgs|sec-fhs-environments|<code>buildFHSEnv</code>}} allows for ease-of-use at the cost of impurity, non-reproducibility, and denied root access (you cannot use <code>sudo</code> in <code>.fhs</code> packages, also see [https://discourse.nixos.org/t/sudo-does-not-work-from-within-vscode-fhs/14227])}}

=== NixOS ===

<syntaxHighlight lang=nix>

</syntaxHighlight>

=== Home Manager ===

<syntaxHighlight lang=nix>

</syntaxHighlight>

Adding extension-specific dependencies, these will be added to the FHS environment:

<syntaxhighlight lang="nix">

</syntaxhighlight>

== Insiders Build ==

If you need to test a recent code change, you can run the insiders build. It is designed to run alongside the main build, with a separate <code>code-insiders</code> command and a different config path, so you can leave your main VS Code instance installed/running.

The following derivation builds a package with the latest insiders build (on NixOS in <code>environment.systemPackages</code>, or on Home Manager in <code>home.packages</code>) :

<syntaxHighlight lang=nix>

(pkgs.vscode.override { isInsiders = true; }).overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: rec {

   version = "latest";

});

</syntaxHighlight>

''[https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-install-latest-vscode-insiders/7895/4 credits: @jnoortheen]''

=== Updating insiders placeholder <code>sha256</code> ===

You will need to update the placeholder <code>sha256</code> value for each new Insiders build.

The new value will appear in a validation error when you try to build.

Put an arbitrary placeholder value in the <code>sha256</code> field, try to build and you'll get an error message regarding the sha256 value.

==== For <code>sha256:</code> ====

Example:<pre>//-- ...

//-- ...</pre>

Copy the "got" value (while stripping out the prepended "<code>sha256:</code>"), and paste it in your placeholder <code>sha256</code> value

Resulting: "<code>16fzxqs6ql4p2apq9aw7l10h4ag1r7jwlfvknk5rd2zmkscwhn6z</code>"

===== For <code>sha256-</code>  =====

Example:<pre>//-- ...

//-- ...</pre>

Copy the "got" value (while stripping out the prepended "<code>sha256-</code>")

Then, run the following python script:

<syntaxhighlight lang="python">

import base64

</syntaxhighlight>

Its output should be pasted in your placeholder <code>sha256</code> value

== Creating development environments using nix-shell ==

Instead of using configuration.nix to add packages (e.g. Python or NodeJS) for developing code on VSCode, you can instead use nix-shell. This will allow you to seamlessly create development environments with the correct packages for your project, without rebuilding and restarting NixOS. See [[Development_environment_with_nix-shell | this page]] for further instructions in building nix-shell development environments.

=== Automatically switch nix shells when switching projects ===

You can do this by using [https://github.com/nix-community/nix-direnv nix-direnv] and [https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=mkhl.direnv the VSCode extension direnv] for integration. View the nix-direnv github page linked for a guide on setting it up.

=== Alternative for manually switching shells ===

The extension [https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=arrterian.nix-env-selector nix-env-selector] will make switching between different nix-shell environments within VSCode so you can switch between different coding projects easily and manually. It has a guide for setting up nix-shell environments for VSCode.

To make sure VSCode runs on Wayland native instead of Xwayland, you can make it use Ozone Wayland by setting the environment variable <code>NIXOS_OZONE_WL</code> with <code>NIXOS_OZONE_WL=1</code>

See [[Wayland#Electron and Chromium]]

The Nixpkgs vscode extensions directory contains [https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/applications/editors/vscode/extensions/update_installed_exts.sh a script] which use <code>code --list-extensions</code> and lookup the latest versions of those extensions to outputs a nix expression with a single <code>extensions</code> attribute of the same type as <code>extensionsFromVscodeMarketplace</code> inputs.

To run it in your current directory:<syntaxhighlight lang="console">curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/master/pkgs/applications/editors/vscode/extensions/update_installed_exts.sh | sh</syntaxhighlight>

=== Example output ===

<syntaxhighlight lang="console">curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/master/pkgs/applications/editors/vscode/extensions/update_installed_exts.sh | sh

}</syntaxhighlight>

The remote-ssh extension works by connecting to a remote host and downloading scripts and pre-built binaries to {{ic|$HOME/.vscode-server}}. When first launching remote-ssh for a NixOS host, the connection will fail due to the provided node.js not having been built for a NixOS system (the dynamic libraries aren't in the same place).

'''tl;dr Use [https://github.com/msteen/nixos-vscode-server nix-vscode-server] or [https://github.com/Mic92/nix-ld nix-ld] on host machines.'''

Note that nix-vscode-server works as of 8/21/21 but is occasionally broken (See https://github.com/msteen/nixos-vscode-server/pull/3, https://github.com/msteen/nixos-vscode-server/pull/4, https://github.com/msteen/nixos-vscode-server/pull/5). Here's a workaround: Install the <code>nodejs-16_x</code> package on the NixOS host, and then run the following nix-shell script:

<syntaxHighlight lang=haskell>

#! nix-shell --pure -i runghc -p "haskellPackages.ghcWithPackages (pkgs: [ pkgs.turtle ])"

{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}

import Turtle

main = sh $ do

   homedir <- home

</syntaxHighlight>

If instead you'd prefer to fix the binaries manually and have to do so every time that you upgrade your VS Code version, then you can install the <code>nodejs-16_x</code> package on the NixOS host and replace the VS Code provided version. This workaround is described here: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/648#issuecomment-503148523. Note that NodeJS needs to be updated according to VS Code upstream requirements (NodeJS 16 required from 4/2022).

Add the following settings to <code>configuration.nix</code> on the NixOS host

{{file|/etc/nixos/configuration.nix|nix|<nowiki>

   programs.nix-ld.enable = true;

</nowiki>}}

Then run <code>nixos-rebuild switch</code> to enable <code>nix-ld</code>. Unlike the <code>nix-vscode-server</code> solution, the <code>nix-ld</code> solution also enables VSCode extensions even if they include non-Nix binaries.

If vscode-remote is installed from nix (vscode-extensions.ms-vscode-remote as above) on the client machine, everything should "just work".

Similar to SSH hosts, both <code>nix-vscode-server</code> and <code>nix-ld</code> solution allows a VSCode Windows client to connect a [https://github.com/nix-community/NixOS-WSL NixOS-WSL] host. However, by default the VSCode Windows client uses <code>wsl.exe --exec</code> to start the code server, which bypasses NixOS environment variables required by <code>nix-ld</code>, resulting in failures.  

As a workaround, search for the following text in all files under the directory <code>$HOME\.vscode\extensions\</code>

{{file|wslDaemon.js|js|<nowiki>

.push("sh","-c"

Replace it with

{{file|wslDaemon.js|js|<nowiki>

.push("sh","-l","-c"

</nowiki>}}

Then restart VS Code and your VS Code client should be able to connect to NixOS host

See https://github.com/nix-community/NixOS-WSL/issues/222 for the discussion about <code>wsl --exec</code> issue on NixOS-WSL.

See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/8305#issuecomment-1661396267 about the workaround.

If you get an error similar to the following, enable a [[Secret Service]] provider.

<pre>Writing login information to the keychain failed with error 'The name org.freedesktop.secret was not provided by any .service files'.</pre>

<blockquote>

Server did not start successfully. Full server log at /home/user/.vscode-server/.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.log<br>

</blockquote>

"No such file or directory" means that libc is not found, see

<pre>

ldd ~/.vscode-server/bin/*/node

</pre>

try to run the node binary on the server

<pre>

~/.vscode-server/bin/*/node

</pre>

if this fails, install node version 16, and try to patch the node binary

<pre>

nix-env -iA nixos.nodejs-16_x

</pre>

<syntaxHighlight lang=bash>

#! /bin/sh

</syntaxHighlight>

If you're using fish or other shell, set this in the user settings JSON on the client machine:

<syntaxHighlight lang=bash>

"remote.SSH.useLocalServer": false

</syntaxHighlight>

See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/2509 and https://github.com/nix-community/nixos-vscode-server/issues/18

[[Category:Applications]]

[[Category:IDE]]

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