Suggestion: improve command line options for extensions

[aliwatters]

A few improvements to command line options for extensions to allow debugging and issue reporting to be easier;

1. code --list-extensions - report versions also
2. code --disable-extensions --enable-extension <extension-name -- allow a single extension to be run
3. code --list-extensions - show enabled/disabled status

HTH

[eamodio]

I would definitely LOVE #2 -- that way I could quickly run with all extensions disabled except for the extension I want to profile! And of course the disabled extensions wouldn't be persistent -- so on next start (without the command line) would have everything the way I would normally run

[shanalikhan]

I have opened similar issue via API ( #15466 )
As extension installing / uninstalling via API not supported yet ( #14444 ) and CLI is supported for now, so it would be great if you can support those things and complete the extension management via CLI

In Settings Sync , currently im using custom requests for download and install extension as API doesnt provide ways to perform functions, i'm looking forward to change to CLI based extension installation / uninstall.

[ramya-rao-a]

fyi #1 is already possible. Use the --show-versions flag when using --list-extensions

[ramya-rao-a]

@sandy081 AFAIK, the disabled status of an extension is stored in the local storage which is available in the renderer process. The cli process doesn't have access to this information. Is that right?

If so, it is not possible to show the disabled/enabled status of an extension when listing them via --list-extension option.

[sandy081]

True. But there are plans to bring that to CLI.

[ramya-rao-a]

Is there any existing issue tracking those plans?

[jsejcksn]

I like this idea, but does --enable-extension need to be combined with --disable-extensions? Or can it can be a separate argument?

code --disable-extensions
code --enable-extension ms-vsliveshare.vsliveshare

And can it accept multiple extension ids so that more than one can be enabled?

code --enable-extension ms-vsliveshare.vsliveshare ms-vsliveshare.vsliveshare-audio

[EthanZeigler]

What I'd love to see is the ability to use the console to deactivate and activate extensions not only globally but per workspace. That way, I can write scripts to set up a workspace with the needed extensions without having to make an extension pack for them. I can't stress how useful that is for people who are frequently creating new workspaces.

Something like this:
code --enable-extension --workspace <workspace-file> ms-vsliveshare.vsliveshare ms-vsliveshare.vsliveshare-audio

Edit: I looked through the source changes that enabled per-workspace extensions in the first place and I truly cannot decipher what is going on. There seems to be little to no documentation on this part of the codebase. I had considered trying to implement a crude method of adding extension control to the project settings file, but it turns out that the per workspace extensions are saved in some sort of internal cache I cannot figure out at all.