Feature request: support VSCode Insiders edition

[postylem]

I'd like to open a ssh connection to a compute node in VSCode Insiders, rather than VSCode (that is, I think as simple as using cli command code-insiders rather than code). From what I can tell, there isn't currently a way to do this, as running

mila code $PATH_ON_CLUSTER

will salloc a node $NODE_NAME, and try to connect with it using the command code -nw --remote ssh-remote+$NODE_NAME $PATH_ON_CLUSTER. I'd like to have the option to use code-insiders ... instead.

To enable this is I think as simple as modifying "code", -> "code-insiders", in milatools/cli/__main__.py (line 277)

milatools/milatools/cli/__main__.py

Lines 276 to 280 in b4c5257

	here.run(
	"code",
	"-nw",
	"--remote",
	f"ssh-remote+{node_name}",

But ideally, I'd be able to do this with a different command, like

mila code-insiders $PATH_ON_CLUSTER

Is there a reason why this isn't a good idea?

[breuleux]

I don't think it should be a separate command, but it could be an option e.g. --command code-insiders and/or an environment variable e.g. $MILATOOLS_CODE_COMMAND.

[breuleux]

Although, I feel like you would typically not use both code and code-insiders, so couldn't you alias the former to the latter?

[postylem]

The first thing I tried was to alias code=‘code-insiders’ but for a reason I don’t understand it doesn’t work; it still runs the command as code. I do think though that if one were potentially testing some feature or other in code-insiders and get really otherwise using standard code, it would be useful to have the switch available as a cli option.

[breuleux]

Ah yeah I think it's just because aliases are processed by the shell and code is executed with shell=False.

[postylem]

Ah, okay. And I imagine subprocess.run( ... , shell=True) is probably not the right solution here. Would an option to specify the command option or reference an environment variable be the best?

[breuleux]

shell=True can work, but it requires some care in escaping special characters. I think an option and environment variable are a better solution.

[breuleux]

I published version 0.0.11, which adds the flag and environment variable along with another fix.

[postylem]

Just to be clear for anyone visiting this thread, as of version 0.0.11, to use VSCode Insiders with milatools, the following will work:

Set environment variable

export MILATOOLS_CODE_COMMAND=code-insiders

Then run

mila code .