Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code provides developers with a robust marketplace packed with useful tools and extensions that make VS Code even more functional and customizable to meet every developer’s needs. New extensions are added regularly, and you can find tools, libraries of snippets, and just about anything else you could want to streamline the development process. In fact, Stackify Prefix has its own code extension in the Marketplace — the easiest and most powerful .NET profiler you’ll find.
Extensions are a vital part of the Visual Studio Code experience. We decided to take a little tour of the other offerings in the Marketplace to come up with a list of 50 most helpful, must-try extensions (in addition to Stackify Prefix, which we, of course, consider a must-have) for any Visual Studio Code enthusiast. All of the following 50 extensions are free, although some require you to have other programs or services installed. We hope you’ll find some great ideas in this list of tools.
Try Stackify’s free code profiler, Prefix, to write better code on your workstation. Prefix works with .NET, Java, PHP, Node.js, Ruby, and Python.
By the way, a few of these extensions are TypeScript related. If you aren’t familiar with it, check out our article about TypeScript vs JavaScript.
If you’re doubtful about your TypeScript quality, verify it with this Visual Studio code extension, which integrates the tslint linter for TypeScript language into VS Code.
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A Visual Studio code extension that automatically finds parses and provides you with code actions and code completions for every import you have, Auto Import works with TypeScript and TSX.
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Docker is one of the hottest trends in development today, and if you use Visual Studio Code, you don’t want to miss out. This is the official Docker extension to help you create dockerfiles and add syntax highlights, commands, and snippets to them.
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Keyboard shortcuts don’t just save time but enable you to maintain your flow as you code. They’re very popular with Visual Studio users, and this extension makes it possible to use your favorite VS keyboard shortcuts in VS Code.
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Maintain a consistent coding style with this Visual Studio code extension. Even if your teams use multiple IDEs and editors, consistency is achievable with EditorConfig for VS Code. Internally, EditorConfig uses the editorconfig npm package, one of the few EditorConfig cores available. Check out the main EditorConfig site here.
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Evernote is one of the most popular note taking apps. It can be used to improve the quality and efficiency of your coding with the Evermonkey extension. This handy Visual Studio Code extension enables Markdown support for Evernote, following the same principles as Sublime Text but with a faster experience.
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Get React and Redux snippets using ES6 for JavaScript to help you structure components with this simple, yet helpful VS Code extension.
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Chrome maintains the most market share among browsers, and it’s widely used by developers thanks to its robust marketplace of tools and tricks for simplifying developers’ lives. This VS Code extension assists you in debugging your JavaScript in Chrome, offering several helpful, time-saving features.
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JSHint is a great tool to quickly spot errors with your JavaScript code. If you’re used to JSHint, you’ll also want to use it in Visual Studio Code, and this extension makes it simple and easy. You can check out the JSHint website here.
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Write great C# code for .NET Core with this extension, powered by OmniSharp. It even debugs your code and supports a variety of operating systems. VS Code aims to be a useful tool for cross-platform C# development, and in fact, many Unity game developers use VS Code rather than the MonoDevelop IDE, making this C# extension a particularly useful tool for many developers.
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If you have trouble parsing TODOs in the working files of your project, this Visual Studio code extension can help. It lets you parse multi-line TODOs and makes your workflow a lot more actionable.
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PowerShell is a great object-oriented programming language. If you use this programming language, this is a must-use extension offering PowerShell language support for Visual Studio Code.
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Use this Visual Studio code extension to add code snippets of Angular (v2 or higher), TypeScript or HTML to your editor. It’s an incredibly easy-to-use extension that streamlines coding productivity.
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Sublime Text is an excellent text editor for coding. If you are used to Sublime Text keyboard shortcuts and want to use them in VS, this extension brings the most popular Sublime Text keyboard shortcuts to Visual Studio code.
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As awesome as CSS is, it’s hard to remember all CSS classes. This extension auto-completes CSS class names as you type, based on the CSS files in your workspace.
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If you like viewing your HTML in a browser frequently for feedback as you code, this Visual Studio code extension will help you do it. It renders HTML files in your system’s default browser.
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Get NgBootstrap snippets, which consist of Angular and Bootstrap 4 snippets, with this helpful extension.
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jQuery is a powerful JavaScript library. You won’t remember every single function, and with this extension, you don’t need to. jQuery Code Snippets brings a vast library of over 130 jQuery Code snippets to Visual Studio code.
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Bower makes building apps easy with its package management capabilities, providing access to most Bower commands within VS Code. With the Bower Visual Studio Code extension, you can install, uninstall, search for, and update packages effortlessly.
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Git is the most popular version control system today. It enables distributed version control for modern web apps. Sometimes, you want to be able to re-trace your code to its previous versions and restore that version. The Git History extension gives you the complete Git history, including a history of inline files, all within Visual Studio Code.
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Scaffolding can be an important first step when building an app, but it can be complex. This Visual Studio extension lets you quickly scaffold Angular file templates.
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Previewing markdown files in a parallel window can be a pain due to the need to repeatedly type ‘Ctrl + K V’ or ‘Cmd + KV’. With the help of this Visual Studio Code extension, you can get automatic previews of the Markdown files you open.
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Save time when coding using the snippets you get with this Visual Studio code extension, which adds snippets for Angular for TypeScript and HTML.
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ESLint enables better code quality by bringing the ESLint library to Visual Studio Code. It also allows you to identify and act on patterns in JavaScript.
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If different brackets confuse you, this Visual Studio code extension will help you match brackets with color-coding options. You can define which characters to match as well as preferred colors.
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MySQL is a very helpful database tool. This extension helps you develop and connect various systems to the database you use, which helps your team access data more efficiently.
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If the simplistic Visual Studio does not appeal to you, this extension adds icons to VS Code, making it more visually appealing and fun to work in. This extension was originally created to enable icons before VS Code began supporting them for files and folders. Now that VS Code does support icons, VScode-Icons aims to provide the most comprehensive set of icons available.
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For programmers using the new Angular 2+ and need a supporting snippet extension, this Visual Studio extension is the one you need.
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TypeScript lets you check and refactor JavaScript code as you type. TypeScript Hero brings this powerful tool to Visual Studio Code, automatically importing your project and libraries to your current file.
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If you have a hard time remembering the path of a file, Path Intellisense can help. It auto-completes filenames as you work, saving you both time and energy.
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HTMLHint is a static code analysis tool that can be used with an IDE to improve the quality of code. If you’re looking to use HTMLHint in Visual Studio Code, there’s an extension for that.
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Tired of endlessly scrolling through your code, or using a ‘Ctrl + F’ to find that exact line of code you need to fix? This Visual Studio code Bookmarks extension makes creating and jumping through code easy and smooth.
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Get the Office UI Fabric Snippets support to create HTML document with this Visual Studio code extension. It has many UI elements that can be easily added to your code.
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Program using Haskell causally or as an expert using this Visual Studio extension that enables support for Haskell development.
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Use snippets of UI Bootstrap to code your Angular project using this Visual Studio Code extension. In HTML or JavaScript files, simply start typing uib- and Angular UI Bootstrap Snippets provides autocompletions.
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You may be happy with things that just work, and don’t feel the urge to keep updating to the latest version of a framework. If that sounds like you, and you’re still using Angular 1, you’ll love this extension. It provides snippets for Angular 1 for both JavaScript and TypeScript.
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Many enterprise applications rely on Java. If you’re having trouble with developing or editing in Java in Visual Studio Code, this VS code extension will make your life easier by providing language support via Eclipse JDT Language Server, which utilizes Eclipse JDT, M2Eclipse and Buildship.
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Microsoft Azure is one of the most popular cloud services used by developers and Ops teams to host and manage applications. Azure Functions is a powerful tool that lets you implement code based on event triggers, and the Azure Functions extension makes this possible in Visual Studio Code.
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Apache Cordova is a popular mobile development framework. This Cordova extension assists in integrating commands, code-hinting and debugging for Apache Cordova within VS Code.
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A favorite text editor of many programmers, Vim is now emulated in Visual Studio Code. This Vim extension makes writing and editing code easier.
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React Native is the popular mobile development framework open sourced by Facebook. This Reach Native extension lets you edit, develop, debug and integrate commands for React Native, providing a development environment for React Native projects.
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If you’re programming with PHP and are looking for an extension to help you debug your PHP code, PHP Debug is the VS Code extension you need, offering a variety of features to streamline development and ensure bug-free code.
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Code Runner is an extension that enables you to run any language’s code snippets in Visual Studio Code, with support for every popular programming language including both legacy languages and those that have gained popularity in recent years such as Clojure, Objective-C, Rust, Racket, AutoHotkey, AutoIt, and many others.
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Generating and adding random data directly into your project, this Visual Studio extension does exactly what its name suggests. It uses the ChangeJS library and was inspired by the Random extension for Atom.
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Apart from Jenkins, Travis is a widely known and used CI platform. Checking the build status of your code during the build stage is key. This Visual Studio code extension enables you to check your project’s Travis CI status without leaving VS Code.
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This simple, useful Visual Studio code extension provides you with the option of wrapping the codes you select in HTML brackets.
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If you’re looking for a tool to help you see the Git Blame to view the revision history for your code, this Visual Studio code extension does just that. It appears in your status bar for easy access.
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Reactjs is a popular open source UI framework released by Facebook. For the developers using Reactjs, this Visual Studio code extension provides snippets in ES6 syntax.
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Github Gist is a nifty way to share code and other pieces of text. With the Settings Sync extension, you can sync snippets, themes and other extensions across different machines using Gist.
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Switching between projects can become tiresome, slowing down your progress. This Visual Studio code extension makes the navigation process seamless, allowing you to multitask like a pro.
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These are a few of the many more extensions available in the Visual Studio Marketplace. Each extension serves a particular purpose in helping you program. They perform a variety of tasks like enabling you to add snippets, navigate through projects, use different programming language and add other features. We hope this list helps you and you find the extension you have been searching for and opens up your mind to the ways you can extend Visual Studio Code to simplify and supercharge your development.
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