Chapter 5. Managing IDE extensions

Procedure

1. Get the publisher and extension name of each chosen extension:

   1. Find the extension on the Open VSX registry website and copy the URL of the extension’s listing page and extension’s version.

   2. Extract the <publisher> and <extension> name from the copied URL:

      https://open-vsx.org/extension/<publisher>/<name>

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      Tip

      If the extension is only available from Microsoft Visual Studio Marketplace, but not Open VSX, you can ask the extension publisher to also publish it on open-vsx.org according to these instructions, potentially using this GitHub action.

      If the extension publisher is unavailable or unwilling to publish the extension to open-vsx.org, and if there is no Open VSX equivalent of the extension, consider reporting an issue to the Open VSX team.

2. Build the custom plugin registry image and update CheCluster custom resource:

   Tip
   • During the build process, each extension will be verified for compatibility with the version of Visual Studio Code used in OpenShift Dev Spaces.

   1. Using OpenShift Dev Spaces instance:

      Important

      For IBM Power (ppc64le) and IBM Z (s390x), the custom plugin registry is expected to be built locally on the corresponding architecture.

      1. Login to your OpenShift Dev Spaces instance as an administrator.

3. Create a new Red Hat Registry Service Account and copy username and token.

   1. Start a workspace using the plugin registry repository.

   2. Open a terminal and check out the Git tag that corresponds to your OpenShift Dev Spaces version (e.g., devspaces-3.15-rhel-8):

      git checkout devspaces-$PRODUCT_VERSION-rhel-8

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   3. Open the openvsx-sync.json file and add or remove extensions.
   4. Run 1. Login to registry.redhat.io task in the workspace (Terminal Run Task…​ devfile 1. Login to registry.redhat.io) and login to registry.redhat.io.
   5. Run 2. Build and Publish a Custom Plugin Registry task in the workspace (Terminal Run Task…​ devfile 2. Build and Publish a Custom Plugin Registry).

   6. Run 3. Configure Che to use the Custom Plugin Registry task in the workspace (Terminal Run Task…​ devfile 3. Configure Che to use the Custom Plugin Registry).

      1. Using Linux operating system:

         Tip
         • Podman and NodeJS version 18.20.3 or higher should be installed in the system.

   7. Download or fork and clone the Dev Spaces repository.

      git clone https://github.com/redhat-developer/devspaces.git

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   8. Go to the plugin registry submodule:

      cd devspaces/dependencies/che-plugin-registry/

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   9. Checkout the tag that corresponds to your OpenShift Dev Spaces version (e.g., devspaces-3.15-rhel-8):

      git checkout devspaces-$PRODUCT_VERSION-rhel-8

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   10. Create a new Red Hat Registry Service Account and copy username and token.

   11. Login to registry.redhat.io:

       podman login registry.redhat.io

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   12. For each extension that you need to add or remove, edit the openvsx-sync.json file:

       • To add extensions, add the publisher, name and extension version to the openvsx-sync.json file.
       • To remove extensions, remove the publisher, name and extension version from the openvsx-sync.json file.

       • Use the following JSON syntax:

             {
                 "id": "<publisher>.<name>",
                 "version": "<extension_version>"
             }

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         Tip

         • If you have a closed-source extension or an extension developed only for internal use in your organization, you can add the extension directly from a .vsix file by using a URL accessible to your custom plugin registry container:

               {
                   "id": "<publisher>.<name>",
                   "download": "<url_to_download_vsix_file>",
                   "version": "<extension_version>"
               }

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         • Read the Terms of Use for the Microsoft Visual Studio Marketplace before using its resources.

   13. Build the plugin registry container image and publish it to a container registry such as quay.io:

       1. $ ./build.sh -o <username> -r quay.io -t custom

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       2. $ podman push quay.io/<username/plugin_registry:custom>

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   14. Edit the CheCluster custom resource in your organization’s cluster to point to the image (for example, on quay.io) and save the changes:

       spec:
         components:
           pluginRegistry:
             deployment:
               containers:
                 - image: quay.io/<username/plugin_registry:custom>
             openVSXURL: ''

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Verification

1. Check that the plugin-registry pod has restarted and is running.
2. Restart the workspace and check the available extensions in the Extensions view of the workspace IDE.