Can't install pre-release extension from via .gitpod.yml

[david-bakin]

Bug description

Turns out that the Rust language "analyzer" extension - https://open-vsx.org/extension/rust-lang/rust-analyzer/0.4.1270 - as of this date - has no release version available on open-vsx, only pre-release versions. And thus you can't install it via .gitpod.yml. (You get an error message saying "no release version available".)

You can install it manually via the extension's page, using the "Install" drop-down menu:

This is the feature request: There should be a way to specify this override ("pre-release okay") in the .gitpod.yml.

(n.b.: Image above shows menu offering to install the release version - however, when you try it it tells you there's no release version available; seems to be a limitation of the code that populates the menu.)

Steps to reproduce

Find an extension on open-vsx that has no release version, only pre-release versions. Name it in the vscode.extensions attribute of a .gitpod.yml. See what happens when you open the workspace.

Workspace affected

No response

Expected behavior

This behavior is okay - default to release versions of extensions only - but there should be a way to modify the attribute in the .gitpod.yml vscode.extensions section to specify that a particular extension is okay to install the pre-release version.

Example repository

No response

Anything else?

Discord discussion: https://discord.com/channels/816244985187008514/1037804343627362374

[david-bakin]

For reference, upstream issue describing command line arguments for specifying this when launching code: microsoft/vscode#143540

[leighmcculloch]

I've opened an issue upstream on rust-analyzer about the fact that since it was renamed it has not been published to open-vsx.org: rust-lang/rust-analyzer#13543.

[lnicola]

Hello from rust-analyzer! To clarify, the old matklad.rust-analyzer was almost one year old and didn't really work well any more.

Two days ago we managed to publish the again, this time as rust-lang.rust-analyzer, but we could only do that after removing matklad.rust-analyzer from OpenVSX. There is no stable version because these come out on Monday. So don't panic, feel free to install the nightly, and if nothing goes wrong, you will be able to switch in a couple of days.

[david-bakin]

Hello from rust-analyzer! ...
... There is no stable version because these come out on Monday. So don't panic, feel free to install the nightly, and if nothing goes wrong, you will be able to switch in a couple of days. ...

@lnicola - the weekly stable version - is that a rust-analyzer process/CI-CD thing or an open-vsx process thing? (Just curious, don't know anything about how publishing extensions works.)

[david-bakin]

@axonasif - oops! just realized I should have classified this as feature not bug ... is this fixable? (i.e., by you ... sorry!)

[lnicola]

@david-bakin rust-analyzer has nightly releases (triggered on midnight UTC) and stable ones, triggered manually sometime on Monday (depending on maintainer availably and such, as someone has to write the release notes and announce the new version). The Monday release is the Sunday nightly, promoted to stable. The releases themselves are compiled and published to both marketplaces in a GitHub Actions workflow.

So it will sort itself out some time on Monday assuming nothing goes wrong with OpenVSX or with the RA maintainers.

[axonasif]

Thank you @lnicola 🙂

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.