How to contribute to Visual Studio Code on GitHub

Do you want to add a new feature on Visual Studio Code, or fix an existing bug? Here’s how to do that!

Let's see together how to move the first steps on the GitHub Open Source repository of Microsoft Visual Studio Code (vscode) with the goal of submitting a Pull Request with our code! (and getting featured in the next official release notes).

Since the Open Source community is constantly growing, I recorded a video to help newcomers move the first steps. It will provide an overview on:

• Understanding the docs (You better not skip this part)
• Setting up the project
• Build & run
• Automated Testing (Spoiler: coverage is low)
• Using the debugger
• Finding an issue
• Contributing without code

Visual Studio Code is one of those large repositories that at first might seem impossible to understand, but the satisfaction in seeing a feature YOU developed, being used by thousands of developers every day, is huge.

This time I don't have a full written version for the article as most of the time I will screen share and directly show what I'm talking about, so here it is:

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Leonardo MontiniFollow

Awarded GitHub Star since 2023 ⭐️ and Microsoft MVP since 2024 🔷 I talk about Open Source, GitHub, and Web Development. I also run a YouTube channel called DevLeonardo, see you there!

Comments

[Muath Alsowadi]

Hi Leonardo Montini ,
How can I contribute to Microsoft Localization Community for vscode at github.com/microsoft/vscode-loc

[Leonardo Montini]

Hey Muath, as usual I recomment to read the README.md file as it might contain something interesting. In this case, if there's a Contributing paragraph which says:

Contributing

If you want to give feedback or report issue, please create a new GitHub issue. Please check if a topic about your issue already exists!. Since translation strings are managed and edited in Microsoft Localization Platform. Change can only be made there. So pull request won't be accepted in vscode-loc repo except language pack readme.md.

So there is is, feel free to create an issue on that repo :)

[Muath Alsowadi]

I opened an issue
github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues...

I think the translation contribution is stopped, do you think so?

[James 'Dante' Midzi]

I would like to have some features removed or an ability to turn them off really

[Leonardo Montini]

Many features are configurable from the settings, you should try to find if the ones you don't like can already be switched off.

If something is missing, feel free to submit an Issue with your request to the vscode team :)