VS Code Extensions

Gitpod already comes well equipped for most development tasks, and provides language support for the most popular programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, Go, Rust, C/C++, Java, Ruby, and many more out of the box.

Still, you may wish to customize Gitpod, or to extend it with new features. You can do this by installing VS Code extensions.

Installing an Extension

To install a VS Code extension in Gitpod, simply go to the left vertical menu, and open the Extensions view. There you can search for an extension and install it with one click.

Please note that this uses the Open VSX registry. If you can’t find an extension you use in your local VS Code, please read the ”Where do I find extensions?” section below.

If the extension is helpful to anyone who works on the project, you can add it to the .gitpod.yml configuration file so that it gets installed for anyone who works on the project. To do that:

1. Visit the extension page (where you installed it from)
2. Click the settings icon
3. Select “Add to .gitpod.yml” from the menu

Your project’s .gitpod.yml is updated automatically and lists the given extension. You can also directly edit this file to install or remove extensions manually.

Here is an example of what a .gitpod.yml with installed extensions may look like:

vscode:
  extensions:
    - svelte.svelte-vscode
    - bradlc.vscode-tailwindcss@0.6.11
    - https://example.com/abc/releases/extension-0.26.0.vsix

You can share the installed extensions with your team by committing the .gitpod.yml change and pushing it to your Git repository.

Extensions are installed in the /workspace/.vscode-remote/extensions/ directory.

User Extensions

You have two options to install extensions for yourself only:

1. For the current workspace only
2. For all your workspaces

The second use case can be useful for extensions that you want to have in all your projects (for example a custom theme), and this doesn’t require changing every project’s .gitpod.yml configuration.

To do this, open the Extensions view, search for the extension you want to install and click Install.

Built-in Extensions

Gitpod already comes with a number of commonly used VS Code extensions pre-installed by default.

You can view all pre-installed extensions by navigating to VS Code’s Extensions section on the left-hand side. In the “Search Extensions in Marketplace” input field, type @builtin to see the built-in extensions.

Where do I find extensions?

If you cannot find an extension by searching in Gitpod, it probably means that the extension hasn’t been added to the Open VSX registry yet.

In that case, please reach out to the extension author and politely ask them to publish their extension to the vendor-neutral, open source Open VSX registry. The ”How to Publish an Extension” docs provide step-by-step instructions.

Please note that .vsix files downloaded from the Visual Studio Marketplace should not be installed in Gitpod, because Microsoft prohibits the direct use of their marketplace by any non-Microsoft software, even though most extensions are actually open source and not developed or maintained by Microsoft.

You can also develop and install your own extensions. Note that installing a .vsix file in Gitpod will not list that extension anywhere publicly except in your own .gitpod.yml, so you can also install private extensions that way.