Automatically install extensions in VS Code? - visual-studio-code

Question

Is there some way to automatically install VS Code extensions when opening a project (like package.json but for vscode?)
If not, is there some way to install extensions at the command line?

Answer 1

Neither of those are currently possible. I created an issue some time ago for installing extensions via the command line, be sure to give it a +1 to show your interest.
Update
The recommended way of doing this is through workspace recommended extensions, this is a .vscode/extensions.json in your project that will prompt the user to install them when they first open the folder, the file looks like this:
{
"recommendations": [
"eg2.tslint",
"dbaeumer.vscode-eslint",
"msjsdiag.debugger-for-chrome"
]
}
You can also try setting up a bash/bat script or some other automation to directly install the extensions using the CLI as suggested by parsley72 in the other answer. You will likely annoy users by doing this though, unless this is in a personal dotfiles project or something similar.

Answer 2

The issue that #daniel-imms created was resolved in June 2017. You can see this in the latest version:
$ code -h
Visual Studio Code 1.16.0
Usage: code [options] [paths...]
Options:
--extensions-dir <dir> Set the root path for extensions.
--list-extensions List the installed extensions.
--show-versions Show versions of installed extensions, when using --list-extension.
--install-extension (<extension-id> | <extension-vsix-path>) Installs an extension.
--uninstall-extension <extension-id> Uninstalls an extension.
--enable-proposed-api <extension-id> Enables proposed api features for an extension.
--disable-extensions Disable all installed extensions.

Answer 3

Thanks to Daniel's suggestion, and I find if you want to keep a list of vscode extensions and install all of them in single click, you can try this approach:
Create the list of extensions you want using the workspace recommended extensions
Use the Configure Recommended Extensions command to create the extensions.json file
You will create a file like this:
{
// See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=827846 to learn about workspace recommendations.
// Extension identifier format: ${publisher}.${name}. Example: vscode.csharp
// List of extensions which should be recommended for users of this workspace.
"recommendations": [
"ms-vscode.cpptools",
"file-icons.file-icons",
"shd101wyy.markdown-preview-enhanced",
"sagebind.mathpad",
"johnpapa.vscode-peacock"
],
// List of extensions recommended by VS Code that should not be recommended for users of this workspace.
"unwantedRecommendations": []
}
Add your favorite vscode extension id into the list in JSON
Re-launch vscode to open the workspace folder (the parent folder for .vscode folder)
Navigate to "Extensions", filter extensions using "Recommended" filter
A list of extensions will be shown in "Workspace Recommendations"
Click the ☁️ button to install all extensions at once

Answer 4

See https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/extension-gallery#_command-line-extension-management
I wrote this Makefile to automatically install extensions
freeze-extensions:
code --list-extensions > extensions.txt
install-extensions:
cat extensions.txt | xargs -L 1 code --install-extension

Answer 5

For projects where Node.JS/npm is available, this one-liner(-ish) will install all recommended extensions for the workspace via the command line in a single step:
npx json5 .vscode/extensions.json | \
npx json-cli-tool --path=recommendations --output=newline | \
xargs -L 1 code --install-extension
You could imagine documenting this step in a README's local development setup instructions.
Breakdown of the command:
It uses npx, which will install the json-cli-tool and json5 packages from npm if they're not already installed.
# Compile the extensions.json file from JSON (with comments) to valid JSON
# That's because VS Code's setting files often contain comments
# If yours doesn't, you can skip this step
npx json5 .vscode/extensions.json | \
# Traverse the JSON and extract all extension names
# on a new line from the "recommendations" array
npx json-cli-tool --path=recommendations --output=newline | \
# Which should output:
# "dbaeumer.vscode-eslint"
# "stylelint.vscode-stylelint"
# Pass each line from the command above to VS Code's CLI
# as seen in [#weaming's solution][2]
xargs -L 1 code --install-extension