Visual Studio Code

Note: Visual Studio Code is unfree, its license prohibits distribution. See the FAQ/unfree page to install unfree software.

For the free distribution of the vscode codebase (without MS branding/telemetry) see VSCodium.

Installing Microsoft's Visual Studio Code

With Home Manager

If you are using Home Manager, you will want to modify your home.nix (or a file inherited by it). Example:

~/home.nix

{ config, pkgs, ... }:
{
  programs.home-manager.enable = true;
  ...    # More of your home-manager config

  programs = {
    ...    # Start of your programs config

    vscode = {
      enable = true;
      package = pkgs.vscodium;    # You can skip this if you want to use the unfree version
      extensions = with pkgs.vscode-extensions; [
        # Some example extensions...
        dracula-theme.theme-dracula
        vscodevim.vim
        yzhang.markdown-all-in-one
      ];
    }

    ...    # Rest of your programs config
  }

  ...    # Rest of your home-manager config
}

• See for more options: Home Manager Manual: Options - programs.vscode
• Search for extensions with configurations: NixOS Search: vscode-extensions

With nix-env

Because it is NixOS, you don't have to be root in order to be able to install stuff. As a normal user, do:

$ nix-env -iA nixos.vscode

And to open or launch the IDE, do:

$ code

Managing extensions

Extensions can be managed using the 'vscode-with-extensions' package:

{ pkgs, ... }:

let
  extensions = (with pkgs.vscode-extensions; [
      bbenoist.Nix
      ms-python.python
      ms-azuretools.vscode-docker
      ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh
    ]) ++ pkgs.vscode-utils.extensionsFromVscodeMarketplace [{
      name = "remote-ssh-edit";
      publisher = "ms-vscode-remote";
      version = "0.47.2";
      sha256 = "1hp6gjh4xp2m1xlm1jsdzxw9d8frkiidhph6nvl24d0h8z34w49g";
  }];
  vscode-with-extensions = pkgs.vscode-with-extensions.override {
      vscodeExtensions = extensions;
    };
in {
  config = {
    environment.systemPackages = [
      vscode-with-extensions
    ];
  };
}

We can retrieve an updated set for manually installed / specified packages by cloning the 'nixpkgs' repo from github, and running: 'nixpkgs/pkgs/misc/vscode-extensions/update_installed_exts.sh'

Remote SSH

The remote-ssh extension works by connecting to a remote host and downloading scripts and pre-built binaries to $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).

Any client to NixOS host

tl;dr Use nix-vscode-server 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 nodejs-14_x package on the NixOS host, and then run the following nix-shell script:

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

{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
import Turtle

main = sh $ do
  homedir <- home
  subdir <- ls $ homedir </> ".vscode-server/bin/"
  let nodepath = subdir </> "node"
  badnode <- isNotSymbolicLink nodepath
  if badnode
    then do
      mv nodepath (subdir </> "node_backup")
      symlink "/run/current-system/sw/bin/node" nodepath
      echo ("Fixed " <> repr subdir)
    else do
      echo ("Already fixed " <> repr subdir)

If instead you'd prefer to fix the binaries manually and have to do so every time that you upgrade your VSCode version, then you can install the nodejs-14_x package on the NixOS host and replace the VSCode 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 VSCode upstream requirements (nodejs 14 is needed as of 5/14/2021).

Nix-sourced VSCode to NixOS host

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

Using nix-shell

Some features of VSCode, like the Python package, require linters or other dependencies. The package nix-env-selector makes this easy and does not require overrides on vscode itself to add dependencies.

Use VSCode extensions without additional configuration

Note: Only available in nixpkgs-unstable or 21.05 and after

In #99968, vscode-fhs and vscodium-fhs packages were added in which the editors launch inside of a FHS compliant chroot environment using buildFHSUserEnv. This reintroduces directories such as /bin, /lib/, and /usr, which allows for extensions which ship pre-compiled binaries to work with little to no additional nixification.

Note: From a philosophical view, use of buildFHSUserEnv allows for ease-of-use at the cost of some impurity and non-reproducibility. If you prioritize purely-declarative configurations, please stay with the above guidance.

Example usage:

$ nix-shell -p vscode-fhs --run code

Home-manager:

  programs.vscode.enable = true;
  programs.vscode.package = pkgs.vscode-fhs;

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

  # needed for rust lang server extension
  programs.vscode.package = pkgs.vscode-fhsWithPackages (ps: with ps; [ rustup zlib ]);