A VS Code extensions manifest
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Today I read a post about Matthias Ott's VS Code setup. I love these posts because you can always discover new things.
After reading it, I shared on Twitter that you can handle and automate your VSCode extension setup with shell commands.
code --install-extension extensionAuthor.extensionName
code --install-extension anotherExtensionAuthor.anotherExtensionName
I've been maintaining a script in my dotfiles to manage my extensions. Meaning, whenever I added a new extension, I had to update this script manually. @shdli shared a way nicer way of handling these repetitive commands. He called it a "manifest'y approach".
# backing up VS Code extensions
code --list-extensions > "./visual-studio-code-extensions.txt"
# installing VS Code extensions
cat "./visual-studio-code-extensions.txt" | xargs -L 1 code --install-extension
Export all your installed extensions using code --list-extensions
, write them to disk, and install them using some shell piping magic and xargs
. That's a very sweet way of automating VS Code extensions!
This new manifest approach immediately led to me introducing commands like install
and backup
in my dotfiles. 🙈 My dotfiles are not well documented, reach out via Twitter or write me an email if you have questions.
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