Set global $PATH environment variable in VS Code - visual-studio-code

Question

I'm defining a custom $PATH environment variable in my ~/.bash_profile (on a Mac), like so:
PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH:$HOME/bin"
However, VS Code of course does not run my .bash_profile, so it does not have my custom paths. In fact, if I Toggle Developer Tools and check process.env.PATH, it doesn't even seem to have /usr/local/bin.
How do I globally set the $PATH environment variable in VS Code?
(I want to set it globally, not per project or per task, since I'm maintaining a lot of small packages.)

Answer 1

If you only need the $PATH to be set in the integrated terminal, you can use VS Code's terminal.integrated.env.<platform> variable (added in version 1.15). Press Cmd+Shift+P (or Ctrl+Shift+P) and search for "Preferences: Open Settings (JSON)". Then add the following entry to the settings file:
"terminal.integrated.env.osx": {
"PATH": "...:/usr/bin:/bin:..."
}
(Replace .osx with .linux or .windows as needed.)
To see your system's $PATH, type echo "$PATH" in Terminal.app, and copy and paste it into the settings snippet above.
As for having the $PATH available everwhere in VS Code, so that it will
be used by extensions that call binaries, the only workaround I've found so far is this:
Configure your shell (bash by default) to have the $PATH you want. For example, my ~/.bash_profile has the following line:
PATH="$PATH:$HOME/bin"
In VS Code, press ⇧⌘P and type install 'code' command if you haven't done so before.
Quit VS Code.
Launch VS Code not by clicking the icon in the dock or in Launchpad, but by opening Terminal.app and typing code. Your newly set path will be active in VS Code until you quit it.
If VS Code restarts, for example due to an upgrade, the $PATH will reset to the system default. In that case, quit VS Code and re-launch it by typing code.
Update: VS Code on Mac and Linux now apparently tries to automatically resolve the shell environment when it is started by clicking the icon (rather than via code). It does this by temporarily starting a shell and reading the environment variables. I haven't tested this though.

Answer 2

In:
> Preferences: Open Settings (JSON)
add to the JSON file:
"terminal.integrated.env.windows": {
"PATH": "${env:PATH}"
},
-> terminal.integrated.env should end with .osx, .linux or .windows depending on your OS.
In order to check if it works execute in your VS Code Terminal:
# For PowerShell
echo $env:PATH
# For bash
echo "$PATH"

Answer 3

I am using vscode on macos for C/C++ development in conjunction with CMake.
The vscode extension CMake Tools allows to manipulate environment variables via the configuration properties cmake.configureEnvironment, cmake.buildEnvironment and cmake.environment (acting respectively on the CMake configuration phase, the build phase and both - see docs).
Then you can extend your system PATH with custom paths by adding the following snippet to your user or project settings.json:
"cmake.environment": {
"PATH": "~/.myTool/bin:${env:PATH}"
},

Answer 4

Visual Studio Code is the problem.
No matter how you set your PATH variable in the shell, there are cases where Visual Studio Code will not inherit your PATH setting. If you're using an application launcher like LaunchBar to start Visual Studio Code, your PATH variable will not be inherited.
Here is a system-wide fix:
In the /etc/paths.d directory, create a file with your Unix username. In that file, place the additional paths that Visual Studio Code needs to work. In my case, this is the contents of my /etc/paths.d file:
/usr/ucb
/opt/local/bin
/opt/local/sbin
~/go/bin
Note: Your /etc/paths.d file will be processed system-wide. Since most systems are single-user, this shouldn't be a problem for most developers.

Answer 5

Since this is the top Google search result for variants of "VS Code path", I will add my answer here.
I'm running Linux and my problem was that VS Code couldn't find some executable needed to build my project. I was running VS Code from the quick launcher (ALT+F2), and not from a Terminal. I tried modifying the PATH variable in many different places, but I couldn't seem to get it right.
In the end, placing the right PATH inside of ~/.zshenv is what worked. It's because .zshenv is the only file that gets sourced for non-interactive shell command execution like from inside of VS Code (more detailed explanation here https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/71253/what-should-shouldnt-go-in-zshenv-zshrc-zlogin-zprofile-zlogout )

Answer 6

This was even easier to fix than the above answers suggested.
Open VSCode Settings (Ctrl + ,) and search for terminal.defaultProfile.
I updated my Terminal > Integrated > Default Profile: Windows.
It was set to null by default. As soon as I changed it to PowerShell and restarted the terminal, it picked up my system's path variables!

Answer 7

What did the trick in my case (Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon, VS code installed via snap) was to put my appended PATH in ~/.profile . Since this file is read at the beginning of a user session, don't forget to logout/login or reboot after editing this file.

Answer 8

I'm working with ubuntu 18.04. I had a similar problem, my enviroment variables were defined and the terminal knows the $PATH but when I tried to debug with golang, go libraries were not found in $PATH variable.
So, to solve it I uninstall the default version from ubuntu software and install manually using the following instructions:
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux
It works for me.

Answer 9

As of VS Code v1.63.2, you can proceed with Ctrl + Shift + P and then type Open Settings (JSON), and simply add the following line.
"terminal.integrated.inheritEnv": true
In my case the code was already there, but set to false. After changing it, everything was fine.

Answer 10

Getting Code to load your existing ~/.bash_profile would be best. I think the docs here are the relevant reference:
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/integrated-terminal#_linux-os-x
Typically $SHELL is your primary shell on Unix-like systems so you
probably won't want to change the shell. You can pass arguments to the
shell when it is launched.
For example, to enable running bash as a login shell (which runs
.bash_profile), pass in the -l argument (with double quotes):
// Linux "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.linux": ["-l"]
// OS X "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.osx": ["-l"]
Although, it looks like that setting is the default on my current VS Code (OS X) setup. Integrated terminal is running my ~/.bash_profile without any changes to the configuration. Perhaps try adding echo Executing .bash_profile... to test if it's running when a new terminal is opened in Code.

Answer 11

Add the following to your ~/.bash_profile:
launchctl setenv PATH $HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH:$HOME/bin
Or run a Bash script when needed, e.g.:
#!/bin/bash
set -Eeuxo pipefail
proj_path=$( cd $( dirname ${BASH_SOURCE[0]} ) && pwd )
launchctl setenv PATH $proj_path/bin:${PATH:-}

Answer 12

For me it's resolved by editing the .desktop file.
Originally I have
Exec=/usr/bin/code-oss --unity-launch %F
. Just changed to
Exec=zsh -c "source ~/.zshrc && /usr/bin/code-oss --unity-launch %F"
since I use zsh, instead of bash. But if you have the same problem with bash, simply replace zsh with bash. And shortcuts from your desktop environment should be fixed.