Maintaining a consistent development environment in team projects, such as sharing recommended VSCode settings, can significantly improve developer experience.
Recent experience has shown me that committing a settings.json
file directly may clash with personal preferences. Providing a settings.sample.json
file, on the other hand, allows team members to quickly adopt project standards while retaining the freedom to customize their environment.
Step-by-Step Guide
1. Create Your Sample Settings File
First, create a settings.sample.json
file in your project's .vscode
directory. It serves as a template for the recommended VSCode settings specific to your project and should contain all the recommended settings that you believe will benefit your team. For example:
{
"typescript.tsdk": "node_modules/typescript/lib",
"editor.codeActionsOnSave": {
"source.fixAll.eslint": "explicit"
}
}
Note to self (author): In the future I qant to add a link to an article explaining my full recommended VSCode
settings.json
for javascript projects, which I plan to publish in the series "My default project setup".
2. Add Instructions to Your Documentation
In your README.md
or contributing guidelines, include a section on setting up the development environment. Here, mention the settings.sample.json
file and provide instructions for using it:
### Copy Recommended VSCode Settings
To align your VSCode settings with the project's recommended configuration:
1. Navigate to the `.vscode` directory at the root of the project.
2. Copy the `settings.sample.json` file and rename the copy to `settings.json`.
3. If desired, customize the `settings.json` with your personal preferences.
3. Update Your .gitignore
To prevent the actual settings.json
from being committed to the repository, ensure your .gitignore
file includes the following line:
.vscode/*
!.vscode/settings.sample.json
This step is crucial to keeping personal or sensitive settings out of the repository.
Best Practices
-
Commenting: Include comments in your
settings.sample.json
to explain the purpose and benefit of each setting. This will help team members understand why certain settings are recommended. - Regular Updates: Periodically review and update the sample file to reflect any changes in your development environment or new best practices.
-
Encourage Feedback: Invite your team to suggest additions or changes to the
settings.sample.json
file.
Conclusion
Sharing a settings.sample.json
file is a less intrusive approach to share recommended VSCode settings. But it might be a bit more work to maintain compared to just committing .vscode/settings.json
Happy coding!
Top comments (0)