Visual Studio Code¶

ID: vscode
Home page: https://code.visualstudio.com
Version requirement: >= 1.60
Platforms: 🅱️ BSD · 🐧 Linux · 🍎 macOS · ⨂ Unix · 🪟 Windows
Operations: installed · install · remove
purl types: pkg:vscode
Brewfile entry: vscode, in Brewfile backups
CLI name: code
Issues and PRs: 📦 manager: vscode-based
Source: meta_package_manager/managers/vscode.toml

Visual Studio Code’s extension manager, driven through the code CLI.

The Marketplace cannot be queried from the CLI: no search, outdated or upgrade command exists (extensions self-update in the background), so only the installed listing, install and remove are declared.

No version_regexes: code --version prints the bare version, then the commit hash and the arch on their own lines, and the default regex picks the first token up.

What `mpm` adds to `vscode`¶

mpm reaches across every manager at once, not vscode alone: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover vscode alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill of materials.

Every mpm command also gains --dry-run and --plan previews, cross-scheme version comparison and purl identifiers. See manager augmentations for how each one is built.

Your `vscode` commands, in `mpm`¶

You already know vscode: each operation maps one-to-one onto mpm, in an interface shared by every manager.

To…	With `vscode`	With `mpm`
List what’s installed	`code --list-extensions --show-versions`	`mpm --vscode installed`
Install a package	`code --install-extension <package_id>`	`mpm install pkg:vscode/<package_id>`
Remove a package	`code --uninstall-extension <package_id>`	`mpm remove pkg:vscode/<package_id>`

Prefix any command above with --dry-run to simulate the underlying manager calls without touching the system: the safe way to watch what mpm would do before trusting it.

Operations¶

Operation	Supported
`installed`	✓
`outdated`
`orphans`
`search`
`install`	✓
`upgrade`
`upgrade_all`
`remove`	✓
`sync`
`cleanup`
`doctor`

Selecting and configuring `vscode`¶

Deselect vscode for a single run with --no-vscode, or persist the choice in your configuration:

[mpm]
vscode = false

Keep it enabled but tune how mpm drives it with a per-manager override:

[mpm.managers.vscode]
timeout = 900

mpm config-template vscode prints every overridable attribute as a ready-to-paste block.

Recipes¶

A few jobs you would otherwise script around vscode, one mpm command each:

Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --vscode dump vscode.toml, then mpm restore vscode.toml on the next one.
Export a Brewfile entry instead: mpm --vscode dump --brewfile Brewfile.
Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --vscode sbom (CycloneDX by default, --spdx for SPDX).

Privilege escalation¶

mpm runs this manager as the current user and never prepends sudo by default. Flip the policy for its privileged operations with --sudo or the per-manager sudo override.

None of its operations needs root.

See privilege escalation for the full policy.

Cooldown¶

State of Visual Studio Code’s release-age gating, from the cooldown support table:

Status: 🚧 Proposed
Mechanism: proposed enterprise policy
Reference: microsoft/vscode#316867

A cooldown only pays off where a compromised release can be withdrawn while the clock runs, and can only be emulated where the registry dates its releases. From the retraction table:

Registry: VS Code Marketplace
Retraction: Unpublish, uniquely with client-side remediation: “the extension is removed from the Marketplace and added to a block list. If the extension has been installed, it’s automatically uninstalled by VS Code” (runtime security), against a public ledger of removals (RemovedPackages.md)

With --cooldown set, mpm skips this manager’s install and upgrade operations rather than run them unguarded (fail-closed); --allow-unsupported-managers opts back in.

Version probe¶

The version is probed by running:

$ code --version
1.60.2
7f6ab5485bbc008386c4386d08766667e155244e
x64

and extracted with:

r"(?P<version>\S+)"

Reference traces¶

Raw native outputs captured in the bundled definition: the reference mpm’s parsers were written against. If you know Visual Studio Code well and a transcript below looks wrong, or a newer release changed its output format, report it.

$ code --list-extensions --show-versions
ms-python.python@2021.9.1246542782
ms-toolsai.jupyter@2021.8.2041215044
tamasfe.even-better-toml@0.14.2

Feed any of these through mpm and the raw output becomes one uniform table, the same shape for every manager: filter it, project columns, or export it (mpm --vscode installed --output json, or csv, toml, yaml), each package carrying a purl and a version comparable across managers.

Changelog¶

5.19.0 (2024-11-14)
- Implement remove operation.
4.3.0 (2021-09-25)
- Add support for Visual Studio Code plugins.