Chapter 4. Managing IDE extensions

Procedure

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

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

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

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

      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. Download or fork and clone the plugin registry repository.

3. Checkout the branch that corresponds to your OpenShift Dev Spaces version:

   git checkout devspaces-$PRODUCT_VERSION-rhel-8

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

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

   • Use the following JSON syntax:

         {
             "id": "<publisher>.<extension>"
         }

     Tip
     • The latest extension version on open-vsx.org is the default. Alternatively, you can add "version": "<extension_version>" on a new line to specify a version.

     • 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>.<extension>",
               "download": "<url_to_download_vsix_file>",
               "version": "<extension_version>"
           }

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

5. Build the plugin registry container image and publish it to a container registry like quay.io:

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

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

6. 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: ''

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.