A VS Code extensions manifest

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.