Nix expressions for VS Code Extensions

At the time of writing this, nixpkgs contains 271 VS Code extensions. This is a small fraction of the more than 40,000 extensions in the VS Code Marketplace! In addition, many of the extensions in nixpkgs are significantly out-of-date.

This flake provides Nix expressions for the majority of available extensions from Open VSX and VS Code Marketplace. A GitHub Action updates the extensions daily.

That said, you can now use a different set of extensions for VS Code/VSCodium in each of your projects. Moreover, you can share your flakes and cache them so that other people don't need to install these extensions manually!

Note

API crawler

• We have a permission from MS to use a crawler on their API (see the discussion). Don't abuse this flake!

nix4vscode

• Check nix4vscode (and contribute!) if you need a more individual approach to extensions.

Prerequisites

• VS Code page on the NixOS wiki.
• (Optional) Flakes.

History

You can search for an extension in the repository history:

• Get commits containing the extension: git log -S '"copilot"' --oneline data/cache/vscode-marketplace-latest.json
• Select a commit, e.g.: 0910d1e
• Search in that commit: git grep '"copilot"' 0910d1e -- data/cache/vscode-marketplace-latest.json

Example

The flake.nix provides an example (packages.${builtins.currentSystem}.default) of vscode-with-extensions.

This package is VS Code with a couple of extensions.

Run VS Code and list installed extensions.

nix run github:nix-community/nix-vscode-extensions/00e11463876a04a77fb97ba50c015ab9e5bee90d# -- --list-extensions

Template

This repository has a flake template.

This template provides a VSCodium with a couple of extensions.

1. Create a flake from the template (see nix flake new).

   nix flake new vscodium-project -t github:nix-community/nix-vscode-extensions
   cd vscodium-project
   git init && git add .

2. Run VSCodium.

   nix run .# .

3. Alternatively, start a devShell and run VSCodium. A shellHook will print extensions available in the VSCodium.

   nix develop .#vscodium
   codium .

In case of problems see Troubleshooting.

Overlay

See Overlays.

If you use NixOS, Home Manager, or similar:

1. If you use flakes, add nix-vscode-extensions to your flake inputs (see example).

   inputs.nix-vscode-extensions.url = "github:nix-community/nix-vscode-extensions/00e11463876a04a77fb97ba50c015ab9e5bee90d";
   outputs = inputs@{ nix-vscode-extensions, ... }: ...

2. If you don't use flakes, import the nix-vscode-extensions repository.

   let
     nix-vscode-extensions = import (
       builtins.fetchGit {
         url = "https://github.com/nix-community/nix-vscode-extensions";
         ref = "refs/heads/master";
         rev = "00e11463876a04a77fb97ba50c015ab9e5bee90d";
       }
     );
   in

3. Add the nix-vscode-extensions.overlays.default to nixpkgs overlays (see Get extensions via the overlay, example).

4. (Optional) Allow unfree packages (see Unfree extensions).

5. Use pkgs.vscode-marketplace, pkgs.open-vsx and others (see extensions attrsets, example).

   [!NOTE] See With-expressions.

   In with A; with B;, the attributes of B shadow the attributes of A.

   Keep in mind this property of with when writing with vscode-marketplace; with vscode-marketplace-release;.

Get extensions

Start REPL

See nix repl.

nix repl

Get your system

nix-repl> builtins.currentSystem

Output on my machine:

x86_64-linux

Get nixpkgs

Get nixpkgs with flakes

nix-repl> nixpkgs = builtins.getFlake github:nixos/nixpkgs/ebe4301cbd8f81c4f8d3244b3632338bbeb6d49c

Get nixpkgs without flakes

nix-repl> nixpkgs = (import (builtins.fetchGit {
            url = "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs";
            ref = "refs/heads/master";
            rev = "ebe4301cbd8f81c4f8d3244b3632338bbeb6d49c";
          }))

Get nix-vscode-extensions

Get nix-vscode-extensions with flakes

nix-repl> nix-vscode-extensions = builtins.getFlake github:nix-community/nix-vscode-extensions/00e11463876a04a77fb97ba50c015ab9e5bee90d

Get nix-vscode-extensions without flakes

nix-repl> nix-vscode-extensions = (import (builtins.fetchGit {
            url = "https://github.com/nix-community/nix-vscode-extensions";
            ref = "refs/heads/master";
            rev = "00e11463876a04a77fb97ba50c015ab9e5bee90d";
          }))

Get extensions via the overlay

nix-repl> extensions = import nixpkgs { system = builtins.currentSystem; config.allowUnfree = true; overlays = [ nix-vscode-extensions.overlays.default ]; }

If you want extensions to have only extensions attrsets, get extensions as follows:

nix-repl> extensions = (import nixpkgs { system = builtins.currentSystem; config.allowUnfree = true; overlays = [ nix-vscode-extensions.overlays.default ]; }).nix-vscode-extensions

Get extensions from nix-vscode-extensions

nix-repl> extensions = nix-vscode-extensions.extensions.x86_64-linux

Extensions

Platforms

We provide attrsets that contain both universal and platform-specific extensions.

We use a reasonable mapping between the sites target platforms and Nix-supported platforms (see systemPlatform in flake.nix, issue).

extensions attrsets

The Get extensions section explains how to get the extensions attrset.

This attrset contains the following attributes:

• vscode-marketplace and open-vsx contain the latest versions of extensions, including pre-release ones. Such pre-release versions expire in some time. That's why, there are *-release attrsets.
• vscode-marketplace-release and open-vsx-release contain the release versions of extensions (see Release extensions).
• forVSCodeVersion - forVSCodeVersion "1.78.2" produces an attrset containing only the extensions compatible with the "1.78.2" version of VS Code (see Versions compatible with a given version of VS Code).
  • You may supply the actual version of your VS Code instead of "1.78.2".
• usingFixesFrom - usingFixesFrom nixpkgsWithFixes produces an attrset where particular extensions have fixes specified in the supplied nixpkgsWithFixes (see mkExtensionNixpkgs in mkExtension.nix, Versions with fixes from particular nixpkgs).
  • The supplied nixpkgsWithFixes can be any version of nixpkgs (see Get nixpkgs).
  • The supplied nixpkgsWithFixes is used only to look up the fixes in its source code and is independent of the nixpkgs that you apply the overlay to.
• The top-level vscode-marketplace* and open-vsx* attributes are constructed using fixes from nixpkgs that you apply the overlay to (if you get extensions via the overlay) or nixpkgs from the nix-vscode-extensions repository (if you get extensions from nix-vscode-extensions).

Extension identifiers

• Extension publishers and names are lowercased only in Nix.
  • They're not lowercased in .json cache files such as data/cache/open-vsx-latest.json.
• Access an extension in the format <attrset>.<publisher>.<name>, where <attrset> is vscode-marketplace, open-vsx, etc. (see Explore).
• If an extension publisher or name aren't valid Nix identifiers, quote them like <attrset>."4"."2".

Missing extensions

• Some previously available extensions may be unavailable in newer versions of this flake.
  • An extension is missing if it doesn't appear during a particular workflow run in a VS Code Marketplace or an Open VSX response about the full set of available extensions (discussion).
  • We let missing extensions remain in cache files (see data/cache) at most maxMissingTimes (specified in .github/config.yaml).

Extension packs

• We don't automatically handle extension packs. You should look up extensions in a pack and explicitly write all necessary extensions.

Unfree extensions

• We use derivations and code from nixpkgs for some extensions (see Versions with fixes from particular nixpkgs).

• Unfree extensions from nixpkgs stay unfree here (see Unfree software, Special extensions).

• If you want to use unfree extensions, try one of the following ways:

  • Installing unfree packages.

  • Global configuration - Example.

  • Set config.allowUnfree = true when constructing pkgs.

    pkgs = import nixpkgs {
      system = builtins.currentSystem;
      config.allowUnfree = true;
      overlays = [ overlays.default ];
    }

  • Override the license of a particular extension.

    let
      resetLicense =
        drv:
        drv.overrideAttrs (prev: {
          meta = prev.meta // {
            license = [ ];
          };
        });
    in
    resetLicense <publisher>.<name>

Explore

Start REPL.

Note

Press the Tab button (denoted as <TAB> below) to see attrset attributes.

Explore extensions

nix-repl> extensions.<TAB>
extensions.forVSCodeVersion            extensions.usingFixesFrom
extensions.open-vsx                    extensions.vscode-marketplace
extensions.open-vsx-release            extensions.vscode-marketplace-release

Latest versions

nix-repl> extensions.vscode-marketplace.rust-lang.rust-analyzer
«derivation /nix/store/v2dyb61zg6faalpcz4faf6dd0ckgbcsp-vscode-extension-rust-lang-rust-analyzer-0.4.2434.drv»

Release versions

nix-repl> extensions.vscode-marketplace-release.rust-lang.rust-analyzer
«derivation /nix/store/5xhr4a3j62awpnsd9l0llq2yn9q4gb6r-vscode-extension-rust-lang-rust-analyzer-0.3.2433.drv»

Versions compatible with a given version of VS Code

nix-repl> extensionsCompatible = extensions.forVSCodeVersion "1.78.2"

The extensionsCompatible attrset contains some of the extensions attrsets.

Versions with fixes from particular nixpkgs

Some extensions require non-trivial fixes (example).

These fixes may be available in a particular version of nixpkgs.

These fixes are read from the source code of that nixpkgs version (see mkExtensionNixpkgs in mkExtension.nix).

Use fixes from nixpkgs

Get extensions.

In this case, we use the same version of nixpkgs that was used to get extensions. You can use any other version instead.

nix-repl> extensionsFixed = extensions.usingFixesFrom nixpkgs

The extensionsFixed attrset contains some of the extensions attrsets.

Removed extensions

Some extensions are unavailable or don't work on particular platforms.

These extensions are disabled via removed.nix.

Contribute

Issues

Resolve issues.

README

• Fix links.
• Write new sections.
• Update commit hashes used in examples if they're too old.
• Enhance text.

Release extensions

The config contains several extensions. We cache the information about the latest release versions of these extensions (see Extensions).

You can add new extensions to the config and make a Pull Request. Use the original extension publisher and name, e.g. GitHub and copilot.

Extra extensions

The extra-extensions.toml file contains a list of extensions to be fetched from sites other than VS Code Marketplace and Open VSX. These extensions replace ones fetched from VS Code Marketplace and Open VSX. Add necessary extensions there, preferrably, for all supported platforms (see Extensions). nvfetcher will fetch the latest release versions of these extensions and write configs to generated.nix.

Special extensions

Certain extensions require special treatment.

Provide functions to build such extension in the extensions directory (see extensions/default.nix).

Optionally, create and link issues explaining chosen functions.

Each extension, including Extra extensions, is built via one of the functions in mkExtension.nix.

These functions don't modify the license of (unfree) extensions from nixpkgs.

Build problems

• Extension with multiple extensions in a zipfile (issue)
• Platform-specific extensions (comment)

Main flake

1. (Optionally) Install, e.g., via nix profile install nixpkgs#direnv.

2. Run a devshell. When prompted about extra-trusted-substituters answer y. This is to use binary caches.

   nix develop nix-dev/

3. (Optionally) Start VSCodium with necessary extensions and tools.

   nix run nix-dev/#codium .

Haskell script

1. See the README.

2. Set the environment.

   set -a
   source .env

3. Run the script.

   nix run haskell/#updateExtensions

Pull requests

Pull requests are welcome!

Troubleshooting

• If Nix-provided VSCodium doesn't pick up the extensions:
  • Close other instances of Nix-provided VSCodium and start VSCodium again.
  • Try to reboot your computer and start VSCodium again.