Visual Studio Code is a commonly used editor by workerd developers (other editors are great too!). These notes present some getting started tips. If you have tricks and tips that would improve the developer experience, please let us know!
The recommended extensions to install are:
-
LLVM clangd extension for code completion and navigation.
This is described below in Clangd code completion, navigation, language server.
-
Microsoft C/C++ extension for debugging, syntax highlighting, etc.
The Microsoft C/C++ extension has IntelliSense support that is not compatible with the clangd extension. We recommend disabling the Microsoft IntelliSense Engine for this project ("Settings → C_Cpp.intelliSenseEngine → disabled").
-
Capnproto-syntax extension for syntax highlighting if you are editing
.capnp
files. -
GitLens extension for super charged git functionality within Visual Studio Code.
-
markdownlint for creating well formed markdown documents.
You can install all of these extensions with the Extensions: Configure Recommended Extensions (Workspace Folder) command. You can find this through the Visual Studio Code Command Palette (shift+ctrl+p
on Linux / Windows, shift+cmd+p
on OS X) and typing "Configure Recommended Extensions". The recommendations that will be installed can be found in the .vscode/extensions.json file.
The .vscode/tasks.json file provides a few useful tasks for use within VSCode:
- Bazel build workerd (dbg)
- Bazel build workerd (fastbuild)
- Bazel build workerd (opt)
- Bazel build all (dbg)
- Bazel clean
- Bazel clean --expunge
- Bazel run all tests (dbg)
- Bazel run all tests (fastbuild)
- Bazel run all tests (opt)
- Generate rust-project.json
The keyboard shortcut for Tasks: Run Build Task is shift+ctrl+b
on Linux and Windows, shift+cmd+b
on OS X.
The test tasks can be run with Tasks: Run Test Task, which does not have a default
keybinding in VSCode, but can be found with the command palette with shift+ctrl+p
on Linux and Windows, and shift+cmd+p
on OS X.
There are workerd debugging targets within Visual Studio Code which are supported on Linux, OS X, and Windows.
The .vscode/launch.json file has launch targets to that can be debugged within VSCode.
Before you start debugging, ensure that you have saved a vscode workspace for workerd, "File → Save Workspace As...". For more information about workspaces, see https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/workspaces.
The Run and Debug view in VSCode (accessible via shift+ctrl+d
on Linux and Windows, shift+cmd+d
on OS X) has a drop-down that allows you to choose which target to run and debug. After selecting a target, hitting F5
will launch the
target with the debugger attached.
The main targets of interest are:
- workerd (dbg)
- workerd with inspector enabled (dbg)
- workerd test case (dbg)
- workerd wd-test case (dbg)
Launching either "workerd (dbg)" or "workerd with inspector enabled (dbg)" will prompt for a workerd configuration for workerd to serve, the default is ${workspaceFolder}/samples/helloworld/config.capnp.
Launching "workerd test case (dbg)" will prompt for a test binary to debug, the default is bazel-bin/src/workerd/jsg/jsg-test
.
Launching "workerd wd-test case (dbg)" will prompt for wd-test file to provide to workerd to debug, the default is src/workerd/api/node/path-test.wd-test
.
We use clangd for code completion and navigation within the Visual Code. We use the simple compile_flags.txt option provide compiler arguments for clangd to analyze sources.
If compile_flags.txt
is not working well on your system, try running:
bazel build --copt="-MD" --cxxopt="-MD" //src/workerd/server:workerd
to generate dependency files and:
find bazel-out/ -name '*.d'`
to locate the generated dependency files. These files will help you align the include paths in
compile_flags.txt
with the ones that the bazel build is using.
There is also a script clangd-check.sh that checks every .h
and
.c++
file in the workerd source tree. Fixing errors there inevitably improves the experience in
Visual Studio Code.
In the past we used Hedron's Bazel Compile Commands Extractor
to generate a compile_commands.json
file for clangd, but this was slow and unreliable for the workerd
use case
(see cloudflare#506).
- There is a handy guide to Visual Studio Code keyboard shortcuts at aka.ms/vscodekeybindings.
- The Command Palette is a great way to find things (
shift+ctrl+p
on Linux / Windows,shift+cmd+p
on OS X). - The Keyboard Shortcuts window is also a great resource (
ctrl+k ctrl+s
on Linux / Windows,cmd+k cmd+s
on OS X). - Read Visual Studio Code Tips and Tricks.
- Check out the 25 VS Code Productivity Tips and Speed Hacks video by Fireship.