[devcontainer]: install recommended extensions on container rebuild

[ThePlenkov]

Problem statement

When working in a devcontainer we used to preinstall some extensions using devcontainer.json file:

{ 
  "customizations": {
    "vscode": {
      "extensions": ["nrwl.angular-console"]
    }
  } 
}

at same time we have another file .vscode/extensions.json which has also extension recommdations:

{
  "recommendations": [
    "nrwl.angular-console", 
  ]
}

So now we have to maintain it in parallel, or we can just keep recommendations , but in this case, when container is rebuilt - they are not installed by default.

Solution

I'd like to suggest to introduce a new feature in a devcontainer.json:

  "customizations": {
    "vscode": {
      "installRecommendedExtensions": true
    }
  }

If this flag is set I expect devcontainer to install extension recommendations in addition to extensions, directly mentioned in the devcontainer.json

Other benefits

• Currently "add to devcontainer" action always suggest to rebuild the container which is a little bit annoying. With this feature if we'll just add extension to workspace recommendations, then it will be installed on next rebuild.

[vs-code-engineering[bot]]

This feature request is now a candidate for our backlog. The community has 60 days to upvote the issue. If it receives 10 upvotes we will move it to our backlog. If not, we will close it. To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding!