launch

Name: launch
Author: microsoft

Launch VS Code OSS in isolation for automation and multi-process debugging.

Stars

★ 187,441

Source

GitHub

Updated

2026-07-11

// securityLow risk

Prompt only, no code
Open source
Community-trusted· 187.4k

Running security audit…

Credentials
Network egress
Code execution
Data access
Supply chain

// install

Copy the install command and let the AI configure it · recommended for beginners

Please install the "launch" skill from askskill:
1. Download https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/vscode/main/.agents/skills/launch/SKILL.md
2. Save it as ~/.claude/skills/launch/SKILL.md
3. Reload skills and tell me it's ready

// download

Download SKILL.mdInstall manifest ↗

// examples

Debug VS Code chat features

Prompt

Use the launch skill to open Code OSS with an isolated profile. Then use Playwright to open the chat panel and send a test message, while allowing me to attach a debugger to the renderer and extension host processes.

Expected

A running Code OSS session where chat UI flows can be automated and relevant processes can be debugged simultaneously.

Reproduce and inspect workbench UI issues

Prompt

Launch a temporary Code OSS session with the launch skill, open a target workspace, reproduce a sidebar rendering issue, capture screenshots during the flow, and let me set breakpoints in the main process to investigate.

Expected

An isolated reproducible session with automated steps, captured screenshots, and debugger attachment for breakpoint-based investigation.

Test UI flows with extension host debugging

Prompt

Start Code OSS with the launch skill and assign unique debug ports. Then run a Playwright flow to install and enable my extension, trigger a command palette action, and attach to the extension host to inspect execution.

Expected

A running session that supports extension installation, UI automation testing, and extension host debugging together.

// docs

Code OSS Dev - Launch + Debug

You're working on VS Code itself and you want to:

Launch a Code OSS build from sources that is already signed in (Copilot, GitHub, etc.) so chat / agent flows work end-to-end.
Drive it with @playwright/cli over CDP (UI automation).
Optionally attach a debugger via dap-cli to set breakpoints in the renderer, extension host, or main process.
Run multiple instances at once without port conflicts.

This skill provides a launcher that clones an authenticated user-data-dir to a throwaway temp folder, picks free ports for every debug surface, and prints them as JSON so you can pick them up programmatically.

The clone is slim: workspace storage, browser caches, file history, cached VSIX backups, and old logs are excluded by default. Auth tokens themselves live in the OS keychain (shared automatically) plus small files inside User/globalStorage - both of which are preserved.

Prerequisites

macOS or Linux. The launcher is a bash script and depends on rsync, curl, nohup, and Node on PATH. The example caller snippets below also use jq (parse the JSON output) and lsof (kill-by-port fallback) — install those if you plan to use them, but the launcher itself does not require them.
A VS Code checkout with node_modules/ installed (npm install if missing — do not symlink from a sibling worktree; that breaks builds in subtle ways).
A VS Code checkout with sources built. Run npm run compile once (one-shot) or npm run watch for incremental rebuilds. Both build the full client and all built-in extensions under extensions/. You must build the full product to run successfully, building just the client is not enough.
An authenticated Code OSS profile to seed from. By default the launcher uses ~/.vscode-oss-dev, which is the user-data-dir the repo's launch.json configs use - if the user has ever signed in to Copilot in a dev build, this should work. Only pass --source-user-data-dir <path> (or set $CODE_OSS_DEV_AUTHED_USER_DATA_DIR) when you specifically want to seed from a different profile (e.g. your regular ~/Library/Application Support/Code install).
- If Code OSS launches and needs a sign-in, don't give up! Use the questions tool to ask the user to sign in.
@playwright/cli available (it's a devDependency in the vscode repo - npm install then use npx @playwright/cli).
For debugger work: dap-cli on PATH. If debugger support would be useful but the dap-cli skill is not present, prompt the user to install it from https://github.com/roblourens/dap-cli.
CSS selectors are internal implementation details. If a selector-based eval stops working, take a fresh snapshot, inspect the current DOM, and update the selector rather than assuming an old one still applies.

The launcher copies the source profile to a temp dir and never mutates the original. Each launch gets its own isolated --user-data-dir and --extensions-dir.

The launcher always sets files.simpleDialog.enable: true in the launched profile's User/settings.json. This is required for automation: VS Code's native OS file dialogs cannot be driven via @playwright/cli over CDP and are completely unreachable over SSH on headless macOS. The simple (quick-input) dialog can be navigated with press and clipboard paste. The override is per-launch and only affects throwaway profiles.

Launch

The launcher script lives next to this SKILL.md at scripts/launch.sh. Resolve it relative to wherever this skill file is installed - do not hardcode an absolute path.

# LAUNCH=<dir-of-this-SKILL.md>/scripts/launch.sh
"$LAUNCH"                                    # default: workbench
"$LAUNCH" --agents                           # Agents window
"$LAUNCH" -- <workspace-path>                # forward extra args to code.sh
"$LAUNCH" --source-user-data-dir <path>      # pick a specific authed profile

…

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