Visual Studio Code Extension for ROS

The Visual Studio Code Extension for ROS¹ provides support for Robot Operating System (ROS) development for ROS1 and ROS2 on Windows and Linux.

Features

• Automatic ROS environment configuration.
• Allows starting, stopping and viewing the ROS core status.
• Automatically create catkin_make or catkin build build tasks.
• Create catkin packages using catkin_create_pkg script or catkin create pkg.
• Run rosrun, roslaunch, or ros2 launch
• Resolve dependencies with rosdep shortcut
• Syntax highlighting for .msg, .urdf and other ROS files.
• Automatically add the ROS C++ include and Python import paths.
• Format C++ using the ROS clang-format style.
• Preview URDF and Xacro files.
• Debug a single ROS node (C++ or Python) by attaching to the process.
• Debug ROS nodes (C++ or Python) launched from a .launch file.

Commands

You can access the following commands from the Visual Studio Code command pallet, typically accessed by pressing ctrl + shift + p and typing the command name you'd like to use from the table below.

Name	Description
ROS: Create Catkin Package	Create a catkin package. You can right click on a folder in the explorer to create it in a specific location.
ROS: Create Terminal	Create a terminal with the ROS environment.
ROS: Show Status	Open a detail view showing ROS core runtime status.
ROS: Start	Start ROS1 core or ROS2 Daemon.
ROS: Stop	Terminate ROS core or ROS2 Daemon.
ROS: Update C++ Properties	Update the C++ IntelliSense configuration to include ROS and your ROS components.
ROS: Update Python Path	Update the Python IntelliSense configuration to include ROS.
ROS: Preview URDF	Preview URDF and Xacro files. The display will update after the root URDF changes are saved.
ROS: Install ROS Dependencies for this workspace using rosdep	Shortcut for rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y.

Tutorials and Walkthroughs

Name	Description
Attaching to a running ROS Node	Learn how to attach VS Code to a running ROS node
Debugging all ROS Nodes in a launch file	Learn how to set up VS Code to debug the nodes in a ROS Launch file
ROSCON 2019 ROS Extension Talk Video	Walkthrough of VS Code from ROSCon 2019
Deep Dive - Episode 0	About the VS Code ROS extension @ a Polyhobbyist
Deep Dive - Episode 1	Installing on Windows & WSL @ a Polyhobbyist
Deep Dive - Episode 2	Installing on Linux @ a Polyhobbyist
Deep Dive - Episode 3	General Usage with ROS1 @ a Polyhobbyist
Deep Dive - Episode 4	General Usage with ROS2 @ a Polyhobbyist
Deep Dive - Episode 5	Debugging Python @ a Polyhobbyist
Deep Dive - Episode 6	Debugging C++ @ a Polyhobbyist
Deep Dive - Episode 7	Using with SSH @ a Polyhobbyist
Deep Dive - Episode 8	Using with with Containers @ a Polyhobbyist

Getting Started

The VS Code ROS extension will attempt to detect and automatically configure the workspace for the appropriate ROS Distro.

The extension will automatically start when you open a catkin or colcon workspace. The build system (e.g. catkin_make or catkin build) will automatically be confirmed from the hidden files associated with each system.

Launch Debugging

The Visual Studio Code extension for ROS supports launch debugging for ROS 1 and ROS 2 nodes, written in Python and C++. The ROS node or nodes to be debugged must be placed in a ROS launch file with the extension .launch for ROS1 or ROS2 or with the extension .py for ROS2.

Automatic creation of a launch.json with ROS Launch support

.vscode/launch.json is a file which defines a debug launch configuration within VS Code.

To create a .vscode/launch.json with ROS debugging support

1. C++ or Python file is selected, vscode uses the selected file to seed the launch creation UI.
2. Click the Run and Debug tab on the left sidebar
3. Select the link to create a .vscode/launch.json file.
4. VS Code will drop down from the command pallet with a list of options, which includes 'ROS'. Select this option.
5. In the next dialog, type the name of the ROS package containing a launch file you'd like to debug.
6. Then find the launch file.

Once this is created, you can use the play button in the title bar, or the "start debugging" accelerator key, or from the command palle (CTRL-SHIFT-P), select Debug: Start Debugging.

NOTE: Other VS Code extensions may interfere with the selection list. If you do not see ROS in the first drop down list, you'll need to create a new file called .vscode/launch.json, then use the manual option described below.

Other Notes:

• Create a new ROS launch file with just the nodes you'd like to debug, and a separate ROS launch file with all other ROS nodes.
• Debugging a launch file with Gazebo or rviz is not supported as this time. Please split these out into separate launch files.
• ros2 run is not supported.
• Traditional XML launch files are supported for ROS1, and both python and XML based launch files are supported for ROS2.

Manually adding a launch file to an existing launch.json

If you have an existing launch.json file (or if there is an extension conflict as mentioned above), you can manually add a launch configuration by adding a new block like this.

{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
      {
          "name": "ROS: Launch my file",
          "request": "launch",
          "target": "<full path to your launch.py or launch file>",
          "launch": ["rviz", "gz", "gzserver", "gzclient"],
          "type": "ros"
      }
    ]
}  

Be sure to include the full path to your launch file, including file extension.

ROS Launch Configuration options

The ROS Launch configuration block supports the following configuration:

Option	Description
name	The name which will be displayed in the VS Code UI launch configuration
request	launch or attach for launching a ROS launch file, or attaching using the attach UI for Pyton or C++
target	the launch file path
type	must be ros to indicate to VS Code that this is a ROS launch configuration
arguments	Arguments passed to roslaunch such as map:=/foo.yaml'
symbolSearchPath	A semicolon delimited search path for Windows symbols, including ROS for Windows symbols downloaded from https://ros-win.visualstudio.com/ros-win/_build
additionalSOLibSearchPath	A semicolon delimited search path for Linux symbols
sourceFileMap	A mapping of Source files from where Symbols expect and the location you have on disk.
launch	If specified, a list of executables to just launch, attaching to everything else. e.g. "launch": ["rviz", "gz", "gzserver", "gzclient"] which prevents attaching a debugger to rviz and gazebo. NOTE: the debugger will ignore file extension: x.py is the same as x.exe.
attachDebugger	If specified, a list of executables to debug. "attachDebugger": ["my_ros_node"] will only attach to my_ros_node.exe, my_ros_node.py or my_ros_node.

Workspace and Global Settings

The ROS extension supports the following global settings, which can be overridden in the workspace.

Json Option	Setting Name	Description
ros.distro	ROS installation distro to be sourced	The Distribution to be sourced. On linux, this cause the extension to look for the ROS setup script in /opt/ros/{distro}/setup.bash. On Windows, c:\opt\ros\{distro}\setup.bat
ros.rosSetupScript	ROS workspace setup script. Overrides ros.distro.	If specified, this will cause the extension to source this script before generating the launch debugging or ROS terminal environment. This overrides the ros.distro, and can be used to specify user scripts or ROS installs in a different location.
ros.isolateEnvironment	Specify if the extension should not capture the environment VS Code is running in to pass to child processes.	Off by default, This setting will prevent the ROS extension from capturing it's hosting environment in case this would conflict with the ROS environment.

Workspace example:

└── .vscode
    ├── launch.json
    ├── settings.json
    └── tasks.json

settings.json

{
    "ros.distro": "foxy",
    "ros.rosSetupScript": "/opt/ros/foxy/install/setup.bash",
    "ros.isolateEnvironment": "false"
}

Reporting Security Issues

Security issues and bugs should be reported privately, via email, to the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) at secure@microsoft.com. You should receive a response within 24 hours. If for some reason you do not, please follow up via email to ensure we received your original message.

Further information, including the MSRC PGP key, can be found in the Security TechCenter.

Data and Telemetry

This extension collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft to help improve our products and services. Read our privacy statement to learn more.

This extension respects the telemetry.enableTelemetry setting, learn more about this option.

Contribution

Contributions are always welcome! Please see our contributing guide for more details!

A big Thank you! to everyone that have helped make this extension better!

• Andrew Short (@ajshort), original author
• James Giller (@JamesGiller)
• PickNikRobotics (@PickNikRobotics) for code formatting

ROS Web Tools

This extension leverages ROS Web Tools for URDF Previewing.

Russell Toris, Julius Kammerl, David Lu, Jihoon Lee, Odest Chadwicke Jenkins, Sarah Osentoski, Mitchell Wills, and Sonia Chernova. Robot Web Tools: Efficient Messaging for Cloud Robotics. In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015

Footnotes

1. ROS is a trademark of Open Robotics. ↩