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 extension marketplace replaced by Open VSX) see VSCodium.
Installation
NixOS
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ vscode ];
Extensions can be managed using 📦︎ vscode-with-extensions :
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
(vscode-with-extensions.override {
vscodeExtensions = with vscode-extensions; [
jnoortheen.nix-ide
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";
}
];
})
];
Some examples here: GitHub Search - type:code language:Nix "extensionFromVscodeMarketplace"
nix store prefetch-file like so:
nix store prefetch-file marketplace.visualstudio.com/_apis/public/gallery/publishers/<publisher>/vsextensions/<extension>/<version>/vspackage
Example:
nix store prefetch-file https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/_apis/public/gallery/publishers/ms-vscode-remote/vsextensions/remote-ssh-edit/0.47.2/vspackage
extensionsFromVscodeMarketplace is a manual way to fetch extensions. However, to keep updated from upstream, 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, nix-community/nix4vscode provides a Nix overlay for VSCode Marketplace and Open VSX extensions.
Home Manager
programs.vscode = {
enable = true;
profiles.default.extensions = with pkgs.vscode-extensions; [
dracula-theme.theme-dracula
vscodevim.vim
yzhang.markdown-all-in-one
];
};
- See for more options: Home Manager Manual: Options - programs.vscode
- Search for extensions with configurations: NixOS Search: vscode-extensions
Nix-env
nix-env -iA nixos.vscode
Use VS Code extensions without additional configuration
With 📦︎ vscode.fhs, the editor launches inside a FHS compliant chroot environment using 📖︎ buildFHSEnv. 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.
buildFHSEnv allows for ease-of-use at the cost of impurity, non-reproducibility, and denied root access (you cannot use sudo in .fhs packages, also see [1])NixOS
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ vscode.fhs ];
Home Manager
programs.vscode = {
enable = true;
package = pkgs.vscode.fhs;
};
Adding extension-specific dependencies, these will be added to the FHS environment:
# needed for rust lang server and rust-analyzer extension
programs.vscode.package = pkgs.vscode.fhsWithPackages (
ps: with ps; [
rustup
zlib
openssl.dev
pkg-config
]
);
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-insiders 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 environment.systemPackages, or on Home Manager in home.packages) :
(pkgs.vscode.override { isInsiders = true; }).overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: rec {
src = (builtins.fetchTarball {
url = "https://code.visualstudio.com/sha/download?build=insider&os=linux-x64";
sha256 = "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA";
});
version = "latest";
buildInputs = oldAttrs.buildInputs ++ [ pkgs.krb5 ];
});
Updating insiders placeholder sha256
You will need to update the placeholder sha256 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 sha256 field, try to build and you'll get an error message regarding the sha256 value.
Resolving the "hash mismatch" error
For sha256:
Example:
//-- ...
error: hash mismatch in file downloaded from 'https://code.visualstudio.com/sha/download?build=insider&os=linux-x64':
specified: sha256:AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
got: sha256:16fzxqs6ql4p2apq9aw7l10h4ag1r7jwlfvknk5rd2zmkscwhn6z
//-- ...
Copy the "got" value (while stripping out the prepended "sha256:"), and paste it in your placeholder sha256 value
Resulting: "16fzxqs6ql4p2apq9aw7l10h4ag1r7jwlfvknk5rd2zmkscwhn6z"
For sha256-
Example:
//-- ...
error: hash mismatch in fixed-output derivation '/nix/store/path':
specified: sha256-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=
got: sha256-aQvTtZdPU2F1UjkFxiLs4A+60A4qc9bXKwKriNsCDPg=
//-- ...
Copy the "got" value (while stripping out the prepended "sha256-")
Then, run the following python script:
import base64
text = b'aQvTtZdPU2F1UjkFxiLs4A+60A4qc9bXKwKriNsCDPg=' # Replace the string in between ' with the according hash
print(base64.decodebytes(text).hex())
Its output should be pasted in your placeholder sha256 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 this page for further instructions in building nix-shell development environments.
Automatically switch nix shells when switching projects
You can do this by using nix-direnv and 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 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.
Wayland
To make sure VSCode runs on Wayland native instead of Xwayland, you can make it use Ozone Wayland by setting the environment variable NIXOS_OZONE_WL with NIXOS_OZONE_WL=1
See Wayland#Electron and Chromium
Updating extension versions
The Nixpkgs vscode extensions directory contains a script which use code --list-extensions and lookup the latest versions of those extensions to outputs a nix expression with a single extensions attribute of the same type as extensionsFromVscodeMarketplace inputs.
To run it in your current directory:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/master/pkgs/applications/editors/vscode/extensions/update_installed_exts.sh | sh
Example output
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/master/pkgs/applications/editors/vscode/extensions/update_installed_exts.sh | sh
{ extensions = [
{
name = "project-manager";
publisher = "alefragnani";
version = "12.4.0";
sha256 = "0q6zkz7pqz2prmr01h17h9a5q6cn6bjgcxggy69c84j8h2w905wy";
}
{
name = "githistory";
publisher = "donjayamanne";
version = "0.6.18";
sha256 = "01lc9gpqdjy6himn7jsfjrfz8xrk728c20903lxkxy5fliv232gz";
}
];
}
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 or nix-ld on host machines.
nix-vscode-server
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-16_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 VS Code version, then you can install the nodejs-16_x 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).
nix-ld
Add the following settings to configuration.nix on the NixOS host
programs.nix-ld.enable = true;
Then run nixos-rebuild switch to enable nix-ld. Unlike the nix-vscode-server solution, the nix-ld solution also enables VSCode extensions even if they include non-Nix binaries.
Nix-sourced VS Code 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".
Remote WSL
Similar to SSH hosts, both nix-vscode-server and nix-ld solution allows a VSCode Windows client to connect a NixOS-WSL host. However, by default the VSCode Windows client uses wsl.exe --exec to start the code server, which bypasses NixOS environment variables required by nix-ld, resulting in failures.
As a workaround, search for the following text in all files under the directory $HOME\.vscode\extensions\
.push("sh","-c"
Replace it with
.push("sh","-l","-c"
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 wsl --exec issue on NixOS-WSL.
See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/8305#issuecomment-1661396267 about the workaround.
Troubleshooting
Writing login information to the keychain failed
If you get an error similar to the following, enable a Secret Service provider.
Writing login information to the keychain failed with error 'The name org.freedesktop.secret was not provided by any .service files'.
Server did not start successfully
Server did not start successfully. Full server log at /home/user/.vscode-server/.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.log
server log:
/home/user/.vscode-server/bin/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/bin/code-server: line 12: /home/user/.vscode-server/bin/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/node: No such file or directory
"No such file or directory" means that libc is not found, see
ldd ~/.vscode-server/bin/*/node
try to run the node binary on the server
~/.vscode-server/bin/*/node
if this fails, install node version 16, and try to patch the node binary
nix-env -iA nixos.nodejs-16_x
#! /bin/sh
# fix-vscode-server-node.sh
# https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/648#issuecomment-503148523
cd ~/.vscode-server/bin/*
if ! ./node -e "require('process').exit(0)"
then
echo patching node binary $(readlink -f node)
rm node
ln -s $(which node)
else
echo node is working $(readlink -f node)
fi
Timeout
If you're using fish or other shell, set this in the user settings JSON on the client machine:
"remote.SSH.useLocalServer": false
See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/2509 and https://github.com/nix-community/nixos-vscode-server/issues/18