Add Publishing VSCE to CI + Automated Versioning to VSCE

[chiaramooney]

Description

Adds end-to-end pipeline support for publishing the VS Code extension to the Marketplace, including npm
authentication via Azure Artifacts, automated post-publish version bumps, and release script support for extension
versioning.

Pipeline — release.yml

• New SkipVscRelease parameter — defaults to true so VSC publish is disabled by default for now; will switch to false later when we are ready to publish
  to publish
• New Release_VSC stage — publishes the pre-built VSIX to the VS Code Marketplace using vsce publish
  - Creates a temporary .npmrc pointing to the winapp-npm-feed Azure Artifacts feed
  - Uses npmAuthenticate@0 for secure authentication (required by Microsoft security policy — no direct npm
  installs)
  - Installs @vscode/vsce locally and invokes via npx to ensure .npmrc auth is respected
  - Uses VSCE_PAT from the vsceMarketplaceIdentity variable group
• New Bump_VSC_Version stage — runs after successful publish, automatically creates a PR to bump the patch version
  in src/winapp-VSC/package.json on main
• VSIX added to GitHub Release assets — the .vsix file is now included alongside MSIX, tgz, and nupkg artifacts

Build template — build.yaml

• Added copy + publish steps for the VS Code extension VSIX artifact (mirrors the existing pattern for NuGet
  packages)

Versioning fix — package-vsc.ps1 + build-cli.ps1

• Bug fix: package-vsc.ps1 now reads the base version from src/winapp-VSC/package.json instead of version.json —
  the extension has its own version, independent of the CLI
• build-cli.ps1 no longer passes the CLI's version to package-vsc.ps1; the script determines its own version

Release script — start-release.ps1

• New -VscVersion parameter — allows the release driver to optionally set the VS Code extension version on the
  release branch (e.g., -VscVersion
  0.2.0 for a minor bump)
• Validates the format, displays it in the release plan, and commits the update to src/winapp-VSC/package.json on
  the release branch before push

Related Issue

Related to #447

Type of Change

• 🔧 Config/build

AI Description

This pull request introduces a CI pipeline to automate the publishing of the VS Code extension to the Marketplace, featuring new stages for building and publishing, and the ability to bump version numbers post-release. It also adds npm authentication via Azure Artifacts and includes compiled VSIX files as part of GitHub release assets. Users can specify the VS Code extension version during releases using the new -VscVersion parameter in start-release.ps1.

Code usage examples:

# To initiate a release with a specific version
./scripts/start-release.ps1 -VscVersion 0.2.0

Breaking Change: None.

[github-actions]

Build Metrics Report

Binary Sizes

Artifact	Baseline	Current	Delta
CLI (ARM64)	30.84 MB	30.84 MB	✅ 0.0 KB (0.00%)
CLI (x64)	31.20 MB	31.20 MB	✅ 0.0 KB (0.00%)
MSIX (ARM64)	13.00 MB	13.00 MB	📉 -0.3 KB (-0.00%)
MSIX (x64)	13.81 MB	13.81 MB	📉 -0.0 KB (-0.00%)
NPM Package	27.06 MB	27.06 MB	📈 +0.1 KB (+0.00%)
NuGet Package	27.14 MB	27.14 MB	📉 -0.4 KB (-0.00%)
VS Code Extension	19.87 MB	19.87 MB	📈 +0.0 KB (+0.00%)

Test Results

✅ 923 passed, 1 skipped out of 924 tests in 410.5s (+3.2s vs. baseline)

Test Coverage

❌ 23.2% line coverage, 38.9% branch coverage · ✅ no change vs. baseline

CLI Startup Time

44ms median (x64, winapp --version) · ✅ no change vs. baseline

---

Updated 2026-05-01 18:20:16 UTC · commit bc4b410 · workflow run

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Note

Copilot was unable to run its full agentic suite in this review.

Adds end-to-end CI/release support for publishing the WinApp VS Code extension (VSIX) to the Marketplace, plus automated post-publish version bumping and release-branch version overrides.

Changes:

• Adds VSIX artifact publishing in the build template and includes the VSIX in GitHub Release assets.
• Introduces conditional Release_VSC (publish) and Bump_VSC_Version (auto PR for patch bump) stages to the release pipeline.
• Updates packaging/release scripts so the VS Code extension version is sourced/overridden from src/winapp-VSC/package.json.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 6 out of 6 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/winapp-VSC/package.json	Adds publisher metadata needed for Marketplace publishing.
scripts/start-release.ps1	Adds -VscVersion override and writes extension version to package.json on release branches.
scripts/package-vsc.ps1	Uses extension package.json version as the base version for VSIX packaging.
scripts/build-cli.ps1	Stops passing CLI version into VSIX packaging script (extension determines its own version).
.pipelines/templates/build.yaml	Copies and publishes the VSIX as a pipeline artifact.
.pipelines/release.yml	Adds optional VS Code Marketplace publish stage and automated version bump PR stage; uploads VSIX to GitHub Release assets.

---

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[chiaramooney]

@copilot apply changes based on the comments in this thread

[Copilot]

@copilot apply changes based on the comments in this thread

Applied the unresolved review feedback in commit 369af92:

• Boolean condition fix (lines 410 and 480): Changed ${{ if ne(parameters.SkipVscRelease, 'true') }} → ${{ if eq(parameters.SkipVscRelease, false) }} to correctly compare the boolean parameter instead of a string, ensuring publishing is reliably disabled by default.
• Pinned @vscode/vsce version: Changed npm install @vscode/vsce → npm install @vscode/vsce@3.9.1 --no-save --no-package-lock for deterministic, reproducible installs without creating lockfile artifacts.