Open automatically *.code-workspace files automatically in VSCode Desktop

[beagleknight]

Hi there,

we are trying to automatically open a *.code-workspace file when we open VSCode Desktop using the corresponding button.

We have seen in the source code that this button is rendered using the VSCodeDesktopButton component and that component is opening a url that includes the agent.expanded_directory.

Is there a way to configure this so the expanded_directory points to our *.code-workspace file?

Best regards,

[matifali]

you can set dir in coder_agent to open VS code in that directory.

[beagleknight]

Hey @matifali !

I just tried your suggestion, and it doesn't work 😞 . I see the following errors when I try to open the VSCode Desktop:

local-server-1> ssh child died, shutting down

[10:26:56.682] Failed to parse remote port from server output

Reading the documentation, we see that the dir field setups the starting directory of the session, so we cannot use the *.code-workspace path here.

[matifali]

Yes this only allows you to open a fixed specific directory. That's how Vs code works. You can open a specific folder while starting it.

[matifali]

For example see this example for Coder dogfood template. This allows us to open VS Code in our repo directory.

coder/dogfood/main.tf

Line 89 in ed50aca

dir = data.coder_parameter.repo_dir.value

[beagleknight]

I understand! 👍 The issue here is we want to open a VS Code workspace from that directory (such as workspace-coder.code-workspace). Right now when VS Code opens it asks us to open the workspace clicking a button, but it would be nice if we can do this automatically.

We have been playing with the URL used by the VSCodeDesktopButton component (the one that starts with vscode://) and tweaking the folder query parameter to include the whole path to our workspace file do the trick. Do you think this could be configured somehow?

[matifali]

You can check here if the vscode URI supports opening a specific workspace. https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-uri. I hope it helps