Setting Up VS Code: Extensions and Tips

Extensions

Enhance your Ansible development experience in VS Code with these recommended extensions:

Linter

Linter  by Nando Vieira. This extension supports linters for various languages, including YAML.

Trailing Spaces

Trailing Spaces  by Shardul Mahadik. Visualizes trailing spaces by highlighting them in red. To configure this extension to automatically remove extra spaces when saving:

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + P and select Preferences: Open User Settings.
2. Search for trailing spaces.
3. Enable Trim on Save.

Markdown All in One

Markdown All in One  by Yu Zhang. A comprehensive suite for writing Markdown, offering keyboard shortcuts, table of contents generation, auto-preview, and more.

Git Graph

Git Graph  by mhutchie. View and manage your repository with a visual git graph. Easily perform Git actions such as cherry-picking directly from the graph.

Git Commit (No Verify)

Git commit(no verify)  by DevEscalus. Skip the pre-commit hook and perform a “no-verify” commit. To use this feature, enable it in settings after installation.

git commit --no-verify

Black Formatter

Black Formatter  by Microsoft. Automatically formats Python code adhering to a standard style. Enable Black Formatter by adding the following to JSON User Settings:

    "[python]": {
        "editor.formatOnType": true,
        "editor.defaultFormatter": "ms-python.black-formatter",
        "editor.formatOnSave": true
    },

Tips

Multiple Cursor Selection

• Alt + Click: Create a new cursor at the click location.
• Ctrl + Alt + Up/Down: Add a new cursor above or below the current cursor.
• Ctrl + Shift + L: Create cursors at all occurrences of the selected text.
• Ctrl + Alt + Shift + I: Create cursors at the start of each line of the selected text.
• Ctrl + D: Select the next occurrence of selected text and create a cursor. Repeat to continue selecting further occurrences.
• Shift + Alt + Click: Add an additional cursor at the click location for simultaneous editing.

You can also use the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and type “Create cursor” to explore more options. For Mac users, substitute Ctrl with Cmd in the shortcuts listed.

Fold / Unfold

• Ctrl + K followed by Ctrl + 0: Fold
• Ctrl + K followed by Ctrl + J: Unfold

Font Size Adjustment

Adjust font size with Ctrl + Shift + + and Ctrl + -.

Comment / Uncomment

Toggle comments with Ctrl + /.

Environment Variables

To run VS Code with specific local environment variables, create a .env file with your desired settings. Instruct VS Code to use this file by adding the following line in .vscode/settings.json:

{
    "python.envFile": "${workspaceFolder}/.env"
}

Ensure that the .env file is ignored by Git by including it in your .gitignore:

.env