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

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

As a normal user, you might be curious what stuff you have installed. To find out, do:

$ nix-env -q

Also, if you want to uninstall stuff that you installed there as a normal user, do:

$ nix-env --uninstall package-name-here

Replace the package-name-here with whatever package returned by 'nix-env -q'.

Managing extensions

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

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
  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).

This can be resolved by installing the nodejs-12_x package on the NixOS host and replacing the VSCode provided version.

Nix-sourced client to NixOS host

If vscode-remote is installed from nix (vscode-extensions.ms-vscode-remote as above) on the client machine, this will automatically replace the node.js shipped by the extension to the host machine.

Any client to NixOS host

If the client's remote-ssh extension was installed from the VSCode store follow the instructions in https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/648#issuecomment-503148523. Note that nodejs needs to be updated according to VS Code upstream requirements (node 12 is needed as of 12/6/2019).

This systemd service automates the binary replacement process. https://github.com/msteen/nixos-vscode-server

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 ]);