Like millions of other developers, I use VSCode. It's not particularly remarkable, but I decided to make a personal list of my favorite extensions. Many of these are plenty well known in the community, but when I started, it look me some time to find out about some of my current favorites. I figured I'd create a central list for beginners to find and that I can send to beginners. This list is separated by language/application/library; ie: Git, Markdown, etc. I will not be including language tooling or Intellisense extensions.
If you are reading this and know of an extension you think I'd like, please leave a comment!
So lets get started.
General Purpose & Miscellaneous
These are all extensions that are not bound to any particular language or application, but just generally useful or fun to have.
Github Theme
This is my theme pack of choice. Specifically, I use the Github Dark Default setting. I like that it keeps things as dark as possible, with very little deviation outside grey/black. I've also just gotten used to the syntax highlighting.
Bracket Pair Colorizer
This extension is an absolute must. It greatly improves readability of code and makes it easier to find errors caused by missing brackets.
Comment Anchors
Well documented code is key. This extension allows you to create descriptive, highlighted comments. I used to use the Better Comments extension, but I switched to Comment Anchors for a couple reasons: First, it works in JSX, which better comments didn't. Second, I can find where I left a comment. Even though I only recently got this extension, I can see how killer this feature can be.
Discord Presence
This one is a little bit vain, as it's sole purpose is to report that one is using VSCode into the Discord status process. I think it's cool though.
Remote Development Extension Pack
This is a must-have extension for anyone who uses WSL, like myself. Other than that, it is immensely useful for its other capabilities.
Material Icon Theme
I used to use vscode-icons, but I found Material Icons and just liked the "flatness" of the icons.
Emoji
This is a simple extension: Insert emojis into code easily.
:emojisense:
In the same vein as the last one, this also allows for even easier insertion of emojis into code.
Git
These are the extensions that I like to have for general purpose git (and Github) usage.
GitLens
This one is an obvious must. With over 10 million downloads, it fills in the git feature void in VSCode. I especially love the git blame feature.
Git Graph
This one is also quite popular, sitting around 1.5 million downloads. It's not particularly special nor necessary, but it's reallllly cool to look at.
Github Pull Requests and Issues
Being able to refer back to PR's and issues without changing windows / desktops is a great time saver.
Top comments (1)
Thank you !!