Use Visual Studio Code Tasks with Gulp 4.0 - visual-studio-code

Question

I am in the process of switching a project from Gulp 3.9.1 (npm install gulp) to Gulp 4.0 (npm install gulp-4.0.build), but when I do this, Visual Studio Code is no longer able to auto-detect the tasks in my gulpfile.js. In both cases, gulp is installed locally.
My .vscode/tasks.json looks like:
{
"version": "0.1.0",
"command": "gulp",
"isShellCommand": true,
"showOutput": "always"
}
Looking at the Tasks output, I see the following message:
Running gulp --tasks-simple didn't list any tasks. Did you run npm install?
Can you use Gulp 4.0 with VS Code and have it autodetect the tasks? If so, what steps do I need to follow to get it setup?

Answer 1

Yes, you can use vscode and gulp4.0. I would look at how to upgrade to gulp4.0.
Did you uninstall gulp3.9.1 first?
You should also install gulp4.0 both locally and globally!
Then run
gulp -v
to make sure it worked. vsCode should detect both tasks in your tasks.json file and from your gulpfile.js. You are using the older tasks.json version 0.1.0. Here is an example of a tasks.json file which allows me to type "gulp sync" in the command line from anywhere in the workspaceRoot and run that task:
{
"version": "2.0.0",
"tasks": [
{
"label": "Start server and process files",
"command": "gulp",
"args": [
"sync"
],
"type": "shell",
"options": {
"cwd": "${workspaceRoot}"
}
}
]
}
It runs the "sync" task I defined in my gulpfile.js. In fact you can assign a hotkey combo to that such as:
{ "key": "shift+escape",
"command": "workbench.action.tasks.runTask",
"args": "Start server and process files"
},
in your keybindings.json.