vscli

A CLI tool to launch vscode projects, which supports devcontainer.

Features

• A shorthand for launching vscode projects (to be used like the code command but with devcontainer support)
• Detects whether a project is a devcontainer project, and launches the devcontainer instead
• Supports the insiders version of vscode
• Tracks your projects and allows you to open them using a CLI-based UI

Installation

Cargo

Install vscli using cargo on Windows or Linux:

cargo install vscli

Homebrew

Install vscli using homebrew on Linux:

brew install michidk/tools/vscli

Chocolatey

Install vscli using Chocolatey on Windows:

choco install vscli

Additional steps

You can set a shorthand alias for vscli in your shell's configuration file:

alias vs="vscli --verbosity error"
alias vsr="vscli recent"

Usage

Commandline

After installation, the vscli command will be available:

Usage: vscli [OPTIONS] [PATH] [ARGS]... [COMMAND]

Commands:
  recent  Opens an interactive list of recently used workspaces
  help    Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Arguments:
  [PATH]     The path of the vscode project to open [default: .]
  [ARGS]...  Additional arguments to pass to vscode [env: ARGS=]

Options:
  -b, --behavior <BEHAVIOR>          Launch behavior [default: detect] [possible values: detect, force-container, force-classic]
  -i, --insiders                     Whether to launch the insider's version of vscode [env: INSIDERS=]
  -s, --history-path <HISTORY_PATH>  Overwrite the default path to the history file [env: HISTORY_PATH=]
  -d, --dry-run                      Whether to launch in dry-run mode (not actually open vscode)
  -v, --verbosity <VERBOSITY>        The verbosity of the output [env: VERBOSITY=] [default: info]
  -h, --help                         Print help (see more with '--help')
  -V, --version                      Print version

Examples

Launching a project

You can launch a project using the default behavior:

vscli                               # open vscode in the current directory
vscli .                             # open vscode in the current directory
vscli /path/to/project              # open vscode in the specified directory

The default behavior tries to detect whether the project is a devcontainer project. If it is, it will launch the devcontainer instead - if not it will launch vscode normally.

You can change the launch behavior using the --behavior flag:

vscli --behavior force-container . # force open vscode devcontainer (even if vscli did not detect a devcontainer)
vscli --behavior force-classic .   # force open vscode without a devcontainer (even if vscli did detect a devcontainer)

You can launch the insiders version of vscode using the --insiders flag:

vscli --insiders .                  # open vscode insiders in the current directory

Additional arguments can be passed to the code executable, by specifying them after --:

vscli . -- --disable-gpu            # open vscode in the current directory without GPU hardware acceleration

Read more about the code flags, by executing code --help.

CLI UI

You can open a CLI-based user interface to display a list of recently opened projects using the recent command:

vscli recent                        # open the CLI-based UI to select a recently opened project to open

Use the arrow keys to navigate the list, and press enter or o to open the selected project. Use q to quit the UI. You can delete entries by highlighting them and pressing x or the delete key.