"Reset workspace" CLI option

[michaelwooley]

Feature

When opening VS code from the CLI, there is a flag (e.g. "--reset-workspace"):

code . --reset-workspace

Using the flag causes VS Code to open in the workspace/directory but:

• It does not open tabs for files open at the end of the previous session.
• It clears out unsaved files/backups (and does not attempt to open these in tabs either). That is, the files found in the various backup directories discussed here.

Motivation

This option will make it easy to recover if a workspace gets into a state where resource consumption is so high that VS Code (and the machine) crash.

---

Recently, I did an erroneous "rename symbol" command that caused 200+ tabs to be opened with unsaved changes. This caused memory and cpu consumption to skyrocket. My machine crashed. That's fine. That happens.

The problem arose in recovering from this state. Once I reboot, I want to re-open VS code in the same directory (i.e. code .). But every time I do that, the same 200+ tabs are going to open and everything crashes again. Trying to open and then quickly close all tabs, etc. wasn't working, either.

I was able to fix things by finding the relevant workspace in ~/.config/Code/Backups/{workspace hash}/file and removing all backups. Once that was done, it was possible to close all open files from the gui.

System info

Just in case, here is info about my system:

Version: 1.66.2
Commit: dfd34e8260c270da74b5c2d86d61aee4b6d56977
Date: 2022-04-11T07:49:24.808Z
Electron: 17.2.0
Chromium: 98.0.4758.109
Node.js: 16.13.0
V8: 9.8.177.11-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 5.10.105-1-MANJARO

[bpasero]

Prior art: #130510, #63668, #22613

[michaelwooley]

@bpasero thanks - I somehow missed those issues when I was searching earlier. Closing.