cookiecutter-vscode-extension

This is the source code repository for cookiecutter-vscode-extension, a Cookiecutter template for Visual Studio code extensions which focuses on long-term maintainability and a reliable setup.

About this document

This is the user documentation for the Cookiecutter template.
If you’re a contributor, see: CONTRIBUTING.md
For license information, see the bottom of this document.

About this template

Goals

cookiecutter-vscode-extension is an opinionated Cookiecutter template for VS Code extensions with a focus on:

long-term maintainability of the generated project; and
reliability through step-by-step instructions, enabling users to build, run, and work on the generated VS Code extensions on diverse platforms.

What you put in

The template allows you to specify:

display name, slug and short description for the VS Code extension;
a project slug, which will be the name of your project directory and repository (and typically has a vscode- prefix);
both an author name and a copyright holder name;
a project license (Apache 2.0 or proprietary license);
the minimum major/minor version for the target VS Code engine;
the language that your extension will contribute to VS Code; and
your username on the Visual Studio Marketplace, and whether or not you’re going to publish your extension there; and
your GitHub username where the source code repository will live (optional).

What you get out of it

The Cookiecutter template will give you:

a package.json in the project root directory, which declares essential development dependencies and useful Yarn scripts;
an extension subdirectory, which is the root of the packaged extension;
the main Typescript module extension/src/extension.ts, which contains the primary hooks for the extension, activate and deactivate;
a time module, which contains convenience functions;
an extension/tsconfig.json file to configure the TypeScript compiler;
an extension/.vscodeignore file, which instructs the extension packager to exclude unneeded files;
an extension/package.json file with configuration settings meant to be consumed mainly by VS Code;
a .gitattributes file;
a .gitignore file;
an .editorconfig file;
a .nvmrc file to lock the Node.js platform version;
a README.md file in the project root directory, aimed at contributors to the extension;
a user-facing extension/README.md file, which will be published alongside the packaged extension;
a LICENSE file in the project root directory;
a user-facing copy of the license at extension/LICENSE.txt, which will be published alongside the packaged extension; and
settings for Visual Studio Code integration.

Using cookiecutter-vscode-extension

System requirements

To use this Cookiecutter template, you need:

A system-wide Python installation.
Cookiecutter version 2.1 or newer.
The JavaScript version manager nvm.
The JavaScript package manager yarn.

Checking your system-wide Python installation

Make sure you have Python 3.7 or higher installed on your system and available in your PATH.

To check, run:

python --version

If that fails, try:

python3 --version

Proceed after you’ve confirmed one of those to work.

Installing Cookiecutter

To install Cookiecutter, follow Cookiecutter’s installation instructions.

Basic usage

To run the template generator, make sure you have a working Cookiecutter installation. Then run:

cookiecutter gh:claui/cookiecutter-vscode-extension

Alternative usage

If you use cookiecutter-vscode-extension often, you can add to your .cookiecutterrc an abbreviations section like so:

abbreviations:
    vscode: https://github.com/claui/cookiecutter-vscode-extension.git

Then, to generate a project, run:

cookiecutter vscode

Working on the generated VS Code extension

See the generated README.md file.

Contributing to this Cookiecutter template

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. For a copy of the License, see LICENSE.

Additional license files

This project may include additional license files other than the Apache License. Those are part of the template, which means they may not apply to this project. The only license that applies to this project is the Apache License.