What is a workspace in Visual Studio Code

Question

I can t quite believe I am asking this question  but I have not been able to find a definition in the documentation  In case it isn t painfully obvious  I am  very  new to Visual Studio Code   For example  Visual Studio Code talks about applying settings at the user level vs the workspace level   On the one hand     a  it could refer to a project directory that you have opened  or  b  it could refer to everything you have opened in a particular window    The page referenced above says    Workspace  These settings are stored inside your workspace in a  vscode folder and only apply when the workspace is opened

User · Answer

Workspace  in my opinion  something that everyone forgot to mention  it   s a way to create an area with all tools you need to address a single language  like other said  in one project you might have PHP  Phyton  JavaScript  Node  etc  Creating a Workspace for each specific language you can have all tools for managing  debugging  testing  for example all your JavaScript  This is much easier to manage  so you can have a workspace for PHP  another for Node      and one project that have folders in multiple workspaces  Hope I have helped

User · Answer

On some investigation  the answer appears to be  a    When I go to change the settings  the settings file goes into a  vscode directory in my project directory

User · Answer

I just installed Visual Studio Code v1 25 1  on a Windows 7 Professional SP1 machine  I wanted to understand workspaces in detail  so I spent a few hours figuring out how they work in this version of Visual Studio Code   I thought the results of my research might be of interest to the community   First  workspaces are referred to by Microsoft in the Visual Studio Code documentation as  multi-root workspaces   In plain English that means  a multi-folder  A K A  root   work environment    A Visual Studio Code workspace is simply a collection of folders - any collection you desire  in any order you wish   The typical collection of folders constitutes a software development project   However  a folder collection could be used for anything else for which software code is being developed   The mechanics behind how Visual Studio Code handles workspaces is a bit complicated   I think the quickest way to convey what I learned is by giving you a set of instructions that you can use to see how workspaces work on your computer   I am assuming that you are starting with a fresh install of Visual Studio Code v1 25 1   If you are using a production version of Visual Studio Code I don t recommend that you follow my instructions because you may lose some or all of your existing Visual Studio Code configuration  If you already have a test version of Visual Studio Code v1 25 1 installed    and you are willing to lose any configuration that already exists  the following must be done to revert your Visual Studio Code to a fresh installation state   Delete the following folder  if it exists      C  Users  username  AppData Roaming Code Workspaces  where   username   is the name of the currently logged-on user    You will be adding folders to Visual Studio Code to create a new workspace  If any of the folders you intend to use to create this new workspace have previously been used with Visual Studio Code  please delete the   vscode  subfolder  if it exists  within each of the folders that will be used to create the new workspace   Launch Visual Studio Code  If the Welcome page is displayed  close it   Do the same for the Panel  a horizontal pane  if it is displayed   If you received a message that Git isn t installed click  Remind me later    If displayed  also close the  Untitled  code page that was launched as the default code page   If the Explorer pane is not displayed click  View  on the main menu then click  Explorer  to display the Explorer pane   Inside the Explorer pane you should see three  3  View headers - Open Editors  No Folder Opened  and Outline  located at the very bottom of the Explorer pane   Make sure that  at a minimum  the open editors and no folder opened view headers are displayed   Visual Studio Code displays a button that reads  Open Folder    Click this button and select a folder of your choice  Visual Studio Code will refresh and the name of your selected folder will have replaced the  No Folder Opened  View name   Any folders and files that exist within your selected folder will be displayed beneath the View name   Now open the Visual Studio Code Preferences Settings file  There are many ways to do this   I ll use the easiest to remember which is menu File  rarr  Preferences  rarr  Settings  The Settings file is displayed in two columns   The left column is a read-only listing of the default values for every Visual Studio Code feature   The right column is used to list the three  3  types of user settings   At this point in your test only two user settings will be listed - User Settings and Workspace Settings   The User Settings is displayed by default   This displays the contents of your User Settings  json file   To find out where this file is located  simply hover your mouse over the  User Settings  listing that appears under the OPEN EDITORS View in Explorer   This listing in the OPEN EDITORS View is automatically selected when the  User Settings  option in the right column is selected   The path should be   C  Users  username  AppData Roaming Code User settings json   This settings json file is where the User Settings for Visual Studio Code are stored   Now click the Workspace Settings option in the right column of the Preferences listing   When you do this  a subfolder named   vscode  is automatically created in the folder you added to Explore a few steps ago   Look at the listing of your folder in Explorer to confirm that the  vscode subfolder has been added   Inside the new  vscode subfolder is another settings json file   This file contains the workspace settings for the folder you added to Explorer a few steps ago   At this point you have a single folder whose User Settings are stored at   C  Users  username  AppData Roaming Code User settings json   and whose Workspace Settings are stored at   C  TheLocationOfYourFolder settings json   This is the configuration when a single folder is added to a new installation of Visual Studio Code  Things get messy when we add a second  or greater  folder   That s because we are changing Visual Studio Code s User Settings and Workspace Settings to accommodate multiple folders  In a single-folder environment only two settings json files are needed as listed above   But in a multi-folder environment a  vscode subfolder is created in each folder added to Explorer and a new file   workspaces json   is created to manage the multi-folder environment   The new  workspaces json  file is created at   c  Users  username  AppData Roaming Code Workspaces  workspace id  workspaces json   The   workspaces id   is a folder with a unique all-number name   In the Preferences right column there now appears three user setting options - User Settings  Workspace Settings  and Folder Settings   The function of User Settings remains the same as for a single-folder environment   However  the settings file behind the Workspace Settings has been changed from the settings json file in the single folder s  vscode subfolder to the workspaces json file located at the workspaces json file path shown above   The settings json file located in each folder s  vscode subfolder is now controlled by a third user setting  Folder Options   This is a drop-down selection list that allows for the management of each folder s settings json file located in each folder s  vscode subfolder  Please note  the  vscode subfolder will not be created in newly-added explorer folders until the newly-added folder has been selected at least once in the folder options user setting   Notice that the Explorer single folder name has bee changed to  UNTITLED  WORKSPACE     This indicates the following    A multi-folder workspace has been created with the name  UNTITLED  WORKSPACE  The workspace is named  UNTITLED  WORKSPACE   to communicate that the workspace has not yet been saved as a separate  unique  workspace file The UNTITLED  WORKSPACE  workspace can have folders added to it and removed from it but it will function as the ONLY workspace environment for Visual Studio Code   The full functionality of Visual Studio Code workspaces is only realized when a workspace is saved as a file that can be reloaded as needed   This provides the capability to create unique multi-folder workspaces  e g   projects  and save them as files for later use   To do this select menu File  rarr  Save Workspace As from the main menu and save the current workspace configuration as a unique workspace file  If you need to create a workspace  from scratch   first save your current workspace configuration  if needed  then right-click each Explorer folder name and click  Remove Folder from Workspace    When all folders have been removed from the workspace  add the folders you require for your new workspace   When you finish adding new folders  simply save the new workspace as a new workspace file   An important note - Visual Studio Code doesn t  revert  to single-folder mode when only one folder remains in Explorer or when all folders have been removed from Explorer when creating a new workspace  from scratch    The multi-folder workspace configuration that utilizes three user preferences remains in effect   This means that unless you follow the instructions at the beginning of this post  Visual Studio Code can never be returned to a single-folder mode of operation - it will always remain in multi-folder workspace mode

User · Answer

Do you ever have to built a new directory and open a new Visual Studio Code window for a test project or for a feature that you want to add to your main project  Ok  so you need a workspace and enough CPU high usage     I just wanted to mention a common usage of workspaces in Visual Studio Code in addition to all other answers

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They call it a multi-root workspace  and with that you can do debugging easily because       With multi-root workspaces  Visual Studio Code searches across all folders for   launch json debug configuration files and displays them with the   folder name as a suffix     Say you have a server and a client folder inside your application folder  If you want to debug them together  without a workspace you have to start two Visual Studio Code instances  one for server  one for client and you need to switch back and forth   But right now  1 24  you can t add a single file to a workspace  only folders  which is a little bit inconvenient

User · Answer

You can save settings at the workspace level and you can open multiple folders in a workspace   If you want to do either of those things  use a workspace  otherwise  just open a folder    A Visual Studio Code workspace is a list of a project s folders and files   A workspace can contain multiple folders   You can customize the settings and preferences of a workspace

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If the Visual Studio Code is a fresh installation    Click on extensions  Search for  python  and click on install Click on view -  explorer If there in no folder added a folder to the Workspace  File- Add folder to Workspace  If you want to use a virtual python environment  Click on File -  Preference -  settings   Click on     open settings JSON  which is in top right corner of the window  then add the path to python exe file which is in the virtual environment         python pythonPath    C   PathTo  VirtualENV  python exe       Start a new terminal and check the correct python interpreter is selected

User · Answer

Although the question is asking  what is a workspace    I feel that the source of confusion is the expectation that workspaces should behave more like  projects  in other editors   So  I to help all the people landing here because of this confusion  I wanted to post the following plugin for VS Code  not mine    Project Manager   https   marketplace visualstudio com items itemName alefragnani project-manager  It has a nice UI for managing  saving and opening  single-folder projects   Save Projects     Open projects with the palette     See the current project in the status bar  click to open project palette      Access projects in the sidebar

User · Answer

The title and subsequent question in the OP seem to boil down to    What is a workspace in VS Code  How do workspace settings work    Short answer   A workspace is a virtual collection of folders opened simultaneously in VSCode and defined in a  code-workspace file  Opening this file will open the collection of folders automatically  This is called a  multi-root  workspace   The  code-workspace file also defines workspace settings that are used by the instance of VSCode where the workspace is opened   When a workspace is not defined  i e  you open a folder on its own  you can create  workspace settings  that are saved in a  vscode settings json file in the root of that folder structure     In more detail   VSCode uses the word  workspace  a little ambiguously in places  The first use to consider is in what is calls a multi-root workspace   A multi-root workspace is a set of folders  the  roots   that are opened collectively in an instance of VSCode  There is no need for these folders to share parent folders  indeed that is the point since VSCode normally uses a single folder in the Explorer side-bar   A multi-root workspace is defined by a  code-workspace  JSON  file which contains both the list of folders to be included in the workspace and VSCode settings    https   code visualstudio com docs editor multi-root-workspaces   Regarding those workspace settings      When you open File   Preferences   Settings the settings editor is shown  At the very least you should see a USER SETTINGS tab  These are the VSCode settings that are universal for your user account on your local machine  In Windows these are saved in  APPDATA  Code User settings json    VS Code Settings File Locations   Individual folders  often each of the  root  folders in a workspace  might have a  vscode folder with their own settings json file  When opened individually  i e  not as part of a workspace  the content of these settings json files is presented under the WORKSPACE SETTINGS tab  and ALL the settings in that file are used by the running VSCode instance   When opening a multi-root workspace things behave differently  Firstly  the WORKSPACE SETTINGS tab shows the options set in the  code-workspace file  Secondly  any folder with a settings json file will appear under a new FOLDER SETTINGS tab  Be aware that  when in a multi-root workspace  only a limited number of settings from each folder s settings json are used  I suggest you open the link above to read further

User · Answer

The main utility of a workspace  and maybe the only one  is to allow to add multiple independent folders that compounds a project  For example   - WorkspaceProjectX   -- ApiFolder    maybe  usr share www api    -- DocsFolder   maybe  home user projx html docs    -- WebFolder    maybe  usr share www web    So you can group those in a work space for a specific project instead of have to open multiple folders windows   You can learn more here

User · Answer

As of May 2018  it seems that a workspace in Visual Studio Code allows you to have quick access to different but related projects  All without having to open a different folder   And you can have multiple workspaces too  See references here and you will get the full picture of it   Reference 1  Reference 2

User · Answer

A workspace is just a text file with a   code-workspace  extension   You can look at it by opening it with a text editor   I too was frustrated by the idea of a workspace and how it is implemented in Visual Studio Code  I found a method that suits me   Start with a single  project  folder   Open Visual Studio Code and close any open workspaces or files or folders  You should see only  OPEN EDITORS  and  NO FOLDER OPENED  in the EXPLORER   From the menu bar   rarr  File  rarr  Open Folder     Navigate to where you want to put your folder and right click to open a new folder   Name it whatever you want  then click on  Select Folder   It will appear in the  Visual Studio Code explorer   Now from menu File  rarr  Save Workspace As      Name the workspace and save it wherever you want to keep all your workspaces   not necessarily where your project folders are   I put all mine in a folder called  Visual Studio Code workspace    It will be saved as a   code-workspace  file and is just an index to all the files and folders it contains  or points to  wherever they may be on your hard drive   You can look at it by opening it with a text editor   Close the folder you created and close Visual Studio Code   Now find your workspace  file  and double click on it   This will open Visual Studio Code with the folder you created in your workspace  Or you can open Visual Studio Code and use  Open Workspace    Any folders you create from within your Visual Studio Code workspace will be inside your first folder  If you want to add any more top level folders  create them first wherever you want them and then use  Add To Workspace    from Visual Studio Code

User · Answer

So  yet again the lesson of not polluting the source tree of a project with artifacts that aren t directly related to that project is being ignored   There is zero reason for a Visual Studio Code workspace file  workspaces json  or directory   vscode  or whatever to be placed in the source tree  It could just as easily have been placed under your user settings   I thought we figured this out about 20  years ago  but it seems that some lessons are doomed to be repeated

User · Answer

Open file menu and select Save Workspace As  that will save current explorer status  After that you can chose file- gt Open Workspace to open before saved workspace

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Just added in February 2021 is this documentation on  quot What is a VS Code  workspace  quot   workspaces   A Visual Studio Code  quot workspace quot  is the collection of one or more folders that are opened in a VS Code window  instance   In most cases  you will have a single folder opened as the workspace but  depending on your development workflow  you can include more than one folder  using an advanced configuration called Multi-root workspaces  The concept of a workspace enables VS Code to  Configure settings that only apply to a specific folder or folders but not others  Persist task and debugger launch configurations that are only valid in the context of that workspace  Store and restore UI state associated with that workspace  for example  the files that are opened   Selectively enable or disable extensions only for that workspace  You may see the terms  quot folder quot  and  quot workspace quot  used interchangeably in VS Code documentation  issues  and community discussions  Think of a workspace as the root of a project that has extra VS Code knowledge and capabilities   Note  It is also possible to open VS Code without a workspace  For example  when you open a new VS Code window by selecting a file from your platform s File menu  you will not be inside a workspace  In this mode  some of VS Code s capabilities are reduced but you can still open text files and edit them      Single-folder workspaces You don t have to do anything for a folder to become a VS Code workspace other than open the folder with VS Code  Once a folder has been opened  VS Code will automatically keep track of things such as your open files and editor layout so the editor will be as you left it when you reopen that folder  You can also add other folder-specific configurations such as workspace-specific settings  versus global user settings  and task definition and debugging launch files  see below in the workspace settings section   Multi-root workspaces Multi-root workspaces are an advanced capability of VS Code that allow you to configure multiple distinct folders to be part of the workspace  Instead of opening a folder as workspace  you will open a  code-workspace JSON file that lists the folders of the workspace  For example        quot folders quot                  quot path quot    quot my-folder-a quot                      quot path quot    quot my-folder-b quot                 A multi-root workspace opened in VS Code  Note  The visual difference of having a folder opened versus opening a  code-workspace file can be subtle  To give you a hint that a  code-workspace file has been opened  some areas of the user interface  for example  the root of the File Explorer  show an extra  Workspace  suffix next to the name     And much more at the first link

User · Answer

What is a workspace  A project that consists of one or more root folders  along with all of the Visual Studio Code configurations that belong to that project  These configurations include   settings that should be applied when that project is open recommended extensions for the project  useful when sharing the configuration files with colleagues  project-specific debugging configurations  Why is a Workspace so confusing  Visual Studio Code does not use the term consistently across the UI  I ve opened a GitHub issue to address this   Sometimes it refers to a workspace as described above  and other times it refers to a workspace as a project that is specifically associated with a  code-workspace file  A good example being the recent files widget  Notice in the linked screenshot that all projects are grouped under the same  quot workspaces quot  heading  which would indicate that everything there is a workspace  But then projects with a  code-workspace file are given a  quot Workspace quot  suffix  contradicting the heading and indicating that only those files are actually workspaces  What is a  code-workspace file  A JSON with Comments file that stores all of the configuration data mentioned above  in addition to the location of all root folders belonging to a workspace  Do I need a  code-workspace file  Only if you re creating a multi-root workspace  in which case you ll have a single  code-workspace file that automatically restores all of the workspace settings  in addition to all of the root folders that you want to be displayed in the Explorer  What about single folder projects  Everything is automated  When you open a folder in Visual Studio Code and start making modifications to the editor that are specifically related to the project you re currently working on  Visual Studio Code automatically creates a  vscode folder and stores it in the root of the project folder that you re working on  This  vscode folder has files that store the changes you made  For example  if you change Visual Studio Code settings that you want to apply only to your current project  Visual Studio Code creates a settings json file with those updates  and that file is stored in the  vscode folder  You can create a  code-workspace file that includes just a single root folder if you really want to  You d then be able to either open the project folder directly  or open the workspace file  But I can t think of any reason why this would be beneficial  How do I create a  code-workspace file  Go to menu File   Save Workspace As    How do I add root folders to a workspace  Go to menu File   Add Folder to Workspace     How do I open a workspace that is defined by a  code-workspace file  Go to menu File   Open Workspace     Alternatively  double click the  code-workspace file  Visual Studio Code won t open the actual file  Instead  it will read that file and open the folders that belong to that workspace  How do I view the actual  code-workspace file  Go to menu File   Open    and select the target  code-workspace file  Alternatively  open the workspace associated with that file  Then open the command palette  search for  and select the Workspaces  Open Workspace Configuration File command

[visual-studio-code] What is a 'workspace' in Visual Studio Code?

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