I am a fullstack developer on Linux and macOS, so I work with configs, deploys, containers, web servers and more. My focus is on Python, JavaScript, Git and Bash but you'll find Go, Rust, Ruby and other languages and tools covered here too.

The main reason I use extensions is to add support for things I expected to be part of VS Code, like support for certain languages, support for intellisense and convenien like not having to end the opening and closing name of an HTML tag.

I also like tools for productivity. Like being able to manage containers or view files in a remote server, without having to use my terminal.

The extensions I use are focused on making my work and personal projects smoother to manage and to catch things out for me (like linting and syntax checking) to add safety.

But having too many extensions can make your IDE slow to load and hard to navigate. Sometimes they conflict (like multiple Markdown extensions). So I am more selective with extensions, or get rid of them when I don't need them.

I have read an article which said that too much intellisense makes you lazy and ruin your memory in a sense. When you have to make code changes in your terminal or GitHub, you don't know the function name or how to use the arguments because you let the IDE autocomplete it for you. The article recommends keeping on autocomplete (no extensions needed) so that variables and functions already covered in the file can be used conveniently, saving you time and mistakes.

And yes, having the pop-up for the arguments or the docs of a function without actually completing it for you is nice. But you can also CTRL+click on a function name to jump to the definition (whether yours or part of a library or the core language) and you'll learn more about the context and flow of the function by doing that.

Extensions I use or want to use in VS Code.

I add links and explanations so you can use them too if you want.

Such as syntax highlighting and linting.

• Python
• Python Indent

• Jekyll Syntax Support
• ruby

Support for configs by file extension

• DotENV
• Better TOML
• YAML
• EditorConfig

  This plugin attempts to override user/workspace settings with settings found in .editorconfig files. No additional or vscode-specific files are required.

See also Git section

• Auto Close Tag
• Auto Rename Tag
• XML Tools

• ESLint
• TSLint

  TSLint support for Visual Studio Code

• npm
• Auto Import (for JS/TypeScript)
• Prettier Now
  • Formats code, if configured for the language type. I prefer this to the plain Prettier extension.
  • I don't think this honors a prettier config or editorconfig - you have to configure the extension itself globally and per repo.
  • This works for JS, CSS, HTML, JSON, GraphQL, TypeScript and more. But I prefer to use it for JS only and let specific formatters handle the rest as I prefer how they handle things.

I am still new to these and there may be others that are better.

• Deno

  Deno support for VS Code

• Deno for VS Code

  A deno extension for vscode to make it easier for developers

• Shell syntax

  Lint syntax errors in bash, zsh, and sh

• Shell format
  • Format shell scripts - helps things wrapped consistently like if statements and reduced double white space.
  • Also works on properties, Dockerfile, ignore file, hosts file, etc.

• Apache Conf
• AppleScript
  • Useful when writing scripts for Apple.
  • I uninstall or disable this when I don't need the syntax support.
• GraphQL

• Code Runner
• Docker (include adds a menu option which has a lot of options around images and containers
• Live Server

  Adds syntax highlighting support for Git config files

• Remote - SSH (Use VS Code to open an SSH tunnel to a server. Access the server in the command-line and browser and edit the remote files in the IDE)

• Edit CSV
• Rainbow CSV

• Markdown All In One
• Markdown Preview Enhanced

• Git Blame
• Git Extension Pack
• Git Graph
• Git History
• Git Config Syntax

  Adds syntax highlighting support for Git config files

• Git Semantic Commit
• Open in Github, Bitbucket, Gitlab
  • Add option to right-click on file
• Settings Sync (Sync your VS Code settings to a gist)
  • This is not so important now that VSE supports this as a builtin feature.

• SVG Editor
• SVG Gallery
  • Right-click on a directory of SVGs and click the gallery view option

  View SVG images in gallery

• Debugger for Firefox
• Debugger for Chrome

• Bookmarks
• Project Manager (I actually don't want to use this, but it is bundled with a pack so I keep it)

I have disabled or uninstalled these extensions.

They are still good - I just don't need them right. Mainly because I am not developing in that language currently. But I want this as a reference to come back to these.

• Dart (Syntax highlighting only)
• Go
  • Created by the Go team at Google

  Rich Go language support for Visual Studio Code

• HashiCorp Terraform
  • I use some other extensions for TF which work fine.

  Syntax highlighting and autocompletion for Terraform

• Liquid
  • This adds support for the "Liquid" format, but I use HTML or Jekyll HTML as a format, so this had no use. Also it handled HTML+Jekyll poorly in a single file (which might have been this extension or not). But the point is I don't work with Liquid directly so don't need this.

  Syntax highlighting, formatting and snippet support for the liquid template language. Supports both Jekyll and Shopify variations.

• npm Intellisense

  Visual Studio Code plugin that autocompletes npm modules in import statements

• Import Cost
  • Calculates the size of NPM imports and shows it inline. This adds no value for my day-to-day use.
• ruby-rubocop
• Settings Sync
  • Sync your extensions, settings and snippets to a gist and to another machine.
  • This is no longer needed now that VS Code has this builtin.

  Synchronize Settings, Snippets, Themes, File Icons, Launch, Keybindings, Workspaces and Extensions Across Multiple Machines Using GitHub Gist.

• TODO Highlight
  • I might still bring this back but I had memory issues where my IDE would slow turn and heat up terribly when adding a TODO inside an HTML comment. So I turned this off.

  highlight TODOs, FIXMEs, and any keywords, annotations...

VS Code extensions I don't like after trying them. So I uninstalled. And this is a reminder for myself not to use them again.

• Python Indent
  • This sounded like a good idea but mess with my style.
• Indent Rainbow
  • This added colors to help separate identation groups easily.
  • This seemed like a good idea initially but it is so distracting and it hurts my eyes to look at.
• Bracket Pair Colorized
  • This can be useful if you have a lot of nested JSON or JavaScript brackets () or curly brackets {}. It is much less distracting than Indent Rainbow.