Workshop for VS Code: develop inside your workshops without leaving the editor

Project Discussion Workshop
1

Hi everyone,

We’re happy to announce the Workshop extension for VS Code. It lets you create, launch, and connect to Workshop containers straight from the IDE.

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What you can do

See your workshops at a glance. The Workshop icon in the Activity Bar opens a view that lists every workshop defined in the project, with its status, base, hostname and installed SDKs.

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Add New Workshop runs a short wizard: choose SDKs from the Canonical reference SDK catalogue, pick a base and a name, and reopen your project in a new workshop container!

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Reopen in Workshop. A single click launches or starts the workshop if needed and reconnects the window inside it. The SDKs, integrated terminal, language servers and debugger all run in the container.

Keep the environment in sync with its definition. When you edit a file under, the extension tracks changes and offers Refresh and Reopen, which rebuilds the workshop and reconnects.

The definition change prompt

Debug a broken refresh. If the daemon rejects a definition, the extension opens the error log next to the file. If a refresh fails partway through, it pauses, and you choose Reopen and Debug to look around inside the half-built workshop. Once the debugging is done, you can abort or continue the refresh attempt.

A paused refresh with the error log open

Switch between workshops or the host all without leaving the single VS Code window.

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Getting started

Requirements:

  • LXD from the 6/stable channel: sudo snap refresh lxd --channel=6/stable

  • Workshop from latest/stable: sudo snap install workshop --classic

Then:

  1. Install the extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Canonical.workshop, or search for “Workshop” by Canonical in the Extensions view.

  2. Open a project, click the Workshop icon in the Activity Bar, and click Add New Workshop.

  3. Click Reopen in Workshop.

The full walkthrough, including refreshing a workshop and recovering from a broken definition, is in the docs: How to develop in a workshop with VS Code.

Feedback

This is an early release (0.5.3), and we’d like to hear how it fits your workflow. Reply in this thread, or file bugs and feature requests on GitHub.

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I came here from the LinkedIn post. We should do more videos!!

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