Back to Blog

My Choice Visual Studio Code Extensions

I've been working inside Visual Studio Code (VSC) for about 6 years now, and roughly 3k hours. I'm not claiming that I've tried every single extension out there and tested each one, but I do believe that I've come across some really neat ones that I'd like to share today.

So here are the active VSC extensions that I currently use today:

Choice VSC Extensions

bierner.markdown-emoji I like being able to bring in emojis with this syntax :joy:

cardinal90.multi-cursor-case-preserve When you have hightlited/selected multiple copies of the same word, and they may be capitalized differently, this ensures that if you replace those strings, the case is preserved. This is quite helpful in a scenario like hte following:

const something = ''
Class Something = ...

Here if you want to rename something to another name, it'll keep the case preservation choice.

chrisdias.vscode-opennewinstance Context for right click menu on directories. Allows you to open a directory in a new instance of VSC.

dsznajder.es7-react-js-snippets React snippets. With AI tools today, I use this less than ever.

github.copilot github.copilot-chat I use the Github copilot extensions, but I'm not thrilled that they're installed whether you want them or not.

golang.go Golang niceties like formatting and a few other helpful features.

mrmlnc.vscode-duplicate Quickly duplicate files/directories with the right click context menu.

ms-azuretools.vscode-containers This basically replaces Docker Desktop app for me. I manage my docker containers/images/volumes/networks at a glance with this tool.

ms-python.black-formatter ms-python.debugpy ms-python.flake8 ms-python.isort ms-python.python ms-python.vscode-pylance ms-python.vscode-python-envs ms-toolsai.jupyter ms-toolsai.jupyter-keymap ms-toolsai.jupyter-renderers ms-toolsai.vscode-jupyter-cell-tags ms-toolsai.vscode-jupyter-slideshow These are all lumped into Python/Jupyter tools. They make developing in python easier. From formatting to linting to sorting imports.

ritwickdey.liveserver This is helpful for being able to startup a quick web server to host the html files in the directory that is currently opened for the VSC window.

wakatime.vscode-wakatime Wakatime is a tool for keeping track of your time usage in VSC. It has a few extensions for tools like Chrome or Obsidian as well. Ultimately i keep track of the time i spend coding with it.

FWIW

Here's the full list as it came from the terminal

$ code --list-extensions
bierner.markdown-emoji
cardinal90.multi-cursor-case-preserve
chrisdias.vscode-opennewinstance
dsznajder.es7-react-js-snippets
github.copilot
github.copilot-chat
golang.go
mrmlnc.vscode-duplicate
ms-azuretools.vscode-containers
ms-python.black-formatter
ms-python.debugpy
ms-python.flake8
ms-python.isort
ms-python.python
ms-python.vscode-pylance
ms-python.vscode-python-envs
ms-toolsai.jupyter
ms-toolsai.jupyter-keymap
ms-toolsai.jupyter-renderers
ms-toolsai.vscode-jupyter-cell-tags
ms-toolsai.vscode-jupyter-slideshow
ritwickdey.liveserver
wakatime.vscode-wakatime