My 5 Essential Visual Studio Code Extensions

I live in VS Code for most of my working hours of the day. VS Code's extension ecosystem is one of its biggest selling points. Here I've documented some of the extensions I can't live without and ultimately make me a better programmer.

Cobalt2 Theme Official

I follow pretty much everything Wes Bos does because I identify with where he’s coming from (and he’s Canadian!). This one works for me though I have to admit I haven’t done a whole lot of trying out of other themes.

Commit Message Editor

I try to follow the semantic release formula as much as possible so standardizing our commit messages is a must. Although now I’ve pretty much memorized the formula, when first making the switch to semantic versioning this extension gives a form to automatically build the commit message from.

One note, when using a VS Code workspace file, for some reason the automatically built commit message always ends up in the commit field for the last repo. A simple cut and paste can move it to the right repo, but it’s a minor annoyance that I hope they will eventually fix.

vscode-icons

I like anything that helps me visualize complex data quicker. This extension adds icons to folders in your project based on their name. This allows for quick identification and differentiation of your folder structure without additional clutter.

YAML (by Red Hat)

If you have to do any YAML editing, this extension will give syntax highlighting and hints that keep you from going crazy.

Prettier

I no longer know how to format code and Prettier is the reason why. And I’m totally fine with losing that skill because who wants to waste time with the tab key?

Eslint

I’ve learned to think of the little red squiggly line as my friend. Fix errors before they become errors.