Shared configuration (tasks/settings)

[nevir]

I have a suite of projects that I'd like to have a shared configuration (e.g. all the repos at my company).

Currently we have duplicate .vscode/settings.json files, and several common .vscode/tasks.json tasks. Some projects have additional tasks defined beyond the common ones.

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I'm unsure what the right approach to take here is. I'd love some input

• Can extensions apply user settings, or define tasks/problem matchers? The docs don't seem to indicate that.
• Can a project declare a VS Code extension as a dependency? (seems unlikely, but hey :P)
• We're toying with the idea of a common package with a postinstall script that symlinks the configuration in (and just over-defining tasks) - but it's pretty ugly.

[egamma]

We have gaps when it comes to managing many projects and sharing among them and the answer to your question is currently not supported, sorry, but we have it on the backlog to improve this.

Are your tasks/problem matchers mostly for supporting build tasks for a particular language?

Having support for workspace - extension dependencies is on our radar.

When it comes to sharing across projects you can consider something similar as we do for extensions. A yeoman generator generates the initial setup and shared tooling code comes from a node module in our case the vscode node module.

[nevir]

Are your tasks/problem matchers mostly for supporting build tasks for a particular language?

Yeah - currently we've got ESLint, TAP problem matchers - the thing is that we're running them via a custom gulp task that wraps each task and only runs a subset of checks at a time. It necessitates somewhat heavy watching.beginsPattern/watching.endsPattern and other settings.

(using off the shelf problem matchers doesn't save much)

Having support for workspace - extension dependencies is on our radar

Awesome!

[egamma]

What isTAP?

CC @dbaeumer

Currently you cannot contribute problem matchers through an extension, so if the problem matchers are generally useful we could add them to set. Could you consider a PR?

[unional]

TAP is a test runner. ava is what I'm using now. 👍 , over mocha

[dbaeumer]

[Addressed in new terminal runner]

This will largely be addressed with the new runner. There extension can contribute tasks which makes creating a tasks.json file for standard tasks unnecessary. For example the C# extension can contribute a standard task to compile C# files.

Since 1.10 extensions can also contribute probem patterns and problem matchers.

Since a longer time workspaces can prereq extensions using extension recommendations.

[eugeneagafonov]

Has this been addressed already? My concern is defining "global" tasks in extensions, but in a broader sense is:

Can extensions apply user settings, or define tasks/problem matchers?

[dbaeumer]

With the May release an extension can defined problem matchers and tasks (problem matchers is already available sine Feb.)

[kellware]

I am not sure if this is the correct issue to post my comment but it seems pretty close.

I am looking for something like what Sublime Text does. In Sublime Text, you can define a "build system" which may be associated with a file extension. The build system is a user-defined shell command. You can then build a file with your build system without having to have a project or workspace set up. However when I try to do the same thing in vscode using "build tasks", I get an error saying "Tasks are only available on a workspace folder". I don't want to have to create/open a workspace folder if I want to build a simple script.

Could you possibly imitate the functionality of Sublime Text?

[mikelward]

@kodos84 Please follow https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/wiki/Submitting-Bugs-and-Suggestions to submit a new feature request.

[sumproxy]

@kodos84 Did you file the feature request as suggested by @mikelward ? I'm also interested in this functionality, so I'd be grateful if you let me know. Thanks.