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QJ Li
QJ Li

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Daily Dev Tip - Open VSCode in the existing window

I have been wondering if vscode supports it in the cli and found out that it is. You can just use the -r --reuse-window flag.

To open the current folder in existing vscode:

code -r .
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or any other folder:

code -r any/path
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Reference:

code --help
Visual Studio Code 1.50.1

Usage: code [options][paths...]

To read from stdin, append '-' (e.g. 'ps aux | grep code | code -')

Options
  -d --diff <file> <file>           Compare two files with each other.
  -a --add <folder>                 Add folder(s) to the last active window.
  -g --goto <file:line[:character]> Open a file at the path on the specified line and character position.
  -n --new-window                   Force to open a new window.
  -r --reuse-window                 Force to open a file or folder in an already opened window.
  --folder-uri <uri>                Opens a window with given folder uri(s)
  --file-uri <uri>                  Opens a window with given file uri(s)
  -w --wait                         Wait for the files to be closed before returning.
  --locale <locale>                 The locale to use (e.g. en-US or zh-TW).
  --user-data-dir <dir>             Specifies the directory that user data is kept in. Can be used to open multiple distinct
                                    instances of Code.
  -h --help                         Print usage.
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