Revisit VS Code folder structure for app data, settings, extensions

[Tyriar]

Config is stored in ~/.config/Code[ - <quality>]/User. To match platform conventions (lowercase and hyphens for everything) as well as to keep consistency with the cli code[-<quality>] I propose we change the settings directory one of:

• ~/.config/code[-<quality>]/user
• ~/.vscode[-<quality>] (see Why are settings and keybindings not in the same directory as extensions? #3883)
• ~/.code[-<quality>] (to prevent using 'vs' showing up in the OSS build as it is now)

If we moved this it would probably require some discovery/migration on first launch of a newer version.

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The below is a living document.

Proposed folder structure

Notes:

• I don't think we should be encouraging the use of admin rights within vscode, instead a permissions elevation dialog would probably be better than allowing a specific place for root user data Use specific user data directories when running as root #5561
• I want to clean up the whole code vs vscode thing in this change; only official builds should carry the visual studio branding, that should carry over to the config directories consistently as well.
• The CLI args --user-data-dir and --extensions-dir will need to be adjusted for this, something like --config-dir and --cache-dir would probably be better.

Windows

Old

Settings:                %APPDATA%\Code[ - Variant]\User\settings.json
Keybindings:             %APPDATA%\Code[ - Variant]\User\keybindings.json
Snippets:                %APPDATA%\Code[ - Variant]\User\snippets\
Workspace storage:       %APPDATA%\Code[ - Variant]\User\workspaceStorage\
Chromium user data:      %APPDATA%\Code[ - Variant]\
Extensions:              %USERPROFILE%\.vscode[-variant]\extensions\

New

Settings:                %APPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\settings.json
Keybindings:             %APPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\keybindings.json
Snippets:                %APPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\snippets\
Workspace storage:       %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\workspaceStorage\
Chromium user data:      %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\userdata\
Extensions:              %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\extensions\

Notes:

• Note that %APPDATA% is roaming and %LOCALAPPDATA% is local, meaning extensions will not be carried across multiple machines until a solution is devised for Persist an extensions manifest file #15442. An extension manifest, eg. %APPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\extensions.json which automatically installs extensions is my thinking of solving this problem.

Linux

Old

Settings:                $HOME/.config/Code[ - Variant]/User/settings.json
Keybindings:             $HOME/.config/Code[ - Variant]/User/keybindings.json
Snippets:                $HOME/.config/Code[ - Variant]/User/snippets/
Workspace storage:       $HOME/.config/Code[ - Variant]/User/workspaceStorage/
Chromium user data:      $HOME/.config/Code[ - Variant]/
Extensions:              $HOME/.vscode[-variant]/extensions/ (not moving)

New

Settings:                $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/[vs]code[-variant]/settings.json
Keybindings:             $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/[vs]code[-variant]/keybindings.json
Snippets:                $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/[vs]code[-variant]/snippets/
Workspace storage:       $XDG_CACHE_HOME/[vs]code[-variant]/workspaceStorage/
Chromium user data:      $XDG_CACHE_HOME/[vs]code[-variant]/userdata/
Extensions:              $XDG_CACHE_HOME/[vs]code[-variant]/extensions/

Notes:

• Thanks to @ollie27 and others for calling out the XDG Base Directory Specification, see that document for fallbacks to the environment variables.
• $XDG_CACHE_HOME would be best for extensions provided there is an extensions manifest in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME Persist an extensions manifest file #15442.
• Maybe extensions should live in $XDG_DATA_HOME?

Mac

Old

Settings:                $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code[ - Variant]/User/settings.json
Keybindings:             $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code[ - Variant]/User/keybindings.json
Snippets:                $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code[ - Variant]/User/snippets/
Workspace storage:       $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code[ - Variant]/User/workspaceStorage/
Chromium user data:      $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code[ - Variant]/
Extensions:              $HOME/.vscode[-variant]/extensions/ (not moving)

New

Settings:                $HOME/Library/Application Support/[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]/settings.json
Keybindings:             $HOME/Library/Application Support/[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]/keybindings.json
Snippets:                $HOME/Library/Application Support/[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]/snippets/
Workspace storage:       $HOME/Library/Application Support/[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]/workspaceStorage/
Chromium user data:      $HOME/Library/Application Support/[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]/userdata/
Extensions:              $HOME/Library/Application Support/[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]/extensions/

Notes:

• Is there a similar standard for dividing cache and config files on Mac? http://stackoverflow.com/a/5084892/1156119

[bpasero]

I wonder if we should do this before GA. Besides the summary, I also do not like that we have 2 folders, one for application data and one for extensions. Ideally we have one folder for both.

[Tyriar]

It was a little confusing when I was writing my script that automates my config to discover there were 2 config folders. If this is going to be done I vote for ~/.code[-<quality>] so that it matches the executable name.

[bpasero]

I am more worried about the migration than finding a name :)

[felixfbecker]

I also don't get why there are two folders. Afaik .vscode only includes one subfolder, extensions. Why not simply put settings in .vscode aswell?

I also like .vscode more than .code, Visual Studio stuff is also in .vs and it is less ambiguous.

[Tyriar]

While fiddling with the config directories it might be worth tackling a portable version at the same time #329

[bpasero]

Not for GA.

[bpasero]

Btw the largest chunk of stuff in app date is created by Chrome itself and is used for local storage, index db, etc. It would be easy to migrate and move our settings out of that folder, I am worried about migrating the rest...