Package Scripts

This gives an overview of the npm scripts available for development and release of the extension. See the scripts block in package.json.

These can all be run from the command line in the root of the repository (with npm installed), using npm run {script-name}.

Environment Initialization

install:all: Installs npm dependencies for both the main extension project and the webview-ui sub-project. It’s recommended to use this instead of npm install, which will only install dependencies for the main project.

dev-webview: for concurrent development/debugging of webview UX.
build-webview: bundles and minifies the webview UX for consumption by the extension.
webpack: builds and packages the extension.
test: runs automated tests.

Some scripts are invoked by other scripts or tools, so need not be run directly, or are otherwise not required for general development tasks:

vscode:prepublish: used by the vsce command for packaging the extension into a vsix file for distribution.
webpack-dev: bundles the extension code in development mode. Since we currently have no conditional logic that depends on whether the extension is running in development or production, this may be redundant.
test-compile: compiles the extension typescript (after building the webview-ui project) without webpacking it. This is a prerequisite to running automated tests. It could be moved into test, but keeping it separate would allow it to be used in the future as a prelaunch task for debugging the extension without webpacking it.
watch: not currently used as part of any workflow I’m aware of, but could potentially be useful for editing while debugging.