Testing a VSCode extension that involves opening a folder/workspace

Question

I'm working on a VSCode extension that takes the path of the file currently opened in the workspace into account.

So to have a reproducible test, I'm trying to open the test folder itself in VSCode and then open the test file in it, like this:

import * as vscode from "vscode";

test("whatever", async function() {
    let workspaceUri = vscode.Uri.file(__dirname);
    // the tests stop here...
    await vscode.commands.executeCommand("vscode.openFolder", workspaceUri);
    await vscode.workspace.openTextDocument(__filename);
})

Problem is when I do that, as probably referred to here , the tests just stop running before I actually test my code.

Is there a way I can safely open a workspace and use it during tests?

Answer 1

Have a look at the docs for testing extensions: Testing-extensions-docs

In the .vscode/launch.json file of your extension in development, you can pass arguments like so (from the docs):

"args": ["file or folder name", "--extensionDevelopmentPath=${workspaceRoot}", "--extensionTestsPath=${workspaceRoot}/out/test" ]

So you could create a testing directory-structure with all the files that you care for in that folder you specify in the config and add those directories/files to your .vscodeignore (the default test-directory is in there already).

the alternative that i have been using so far is using a bash script with the following content:

#!/bin/bash

# $0 = command itself
# $1 = extension-directory(relative path)
# $2 = process-id of code to kill

[ -z "$1" ] && { echo "path-argument not supplied"; exit 1; }
[ -z "$2" ] || { xkill -id $2; }

cd $1
vsce package
file=$(find . -name "*.vsix")
code --install-extension $file
code &
echo $!

All that remains is opening a folder in the launched code-instance and executing any commands in question. Setting up an appropriate testing-environment seems more profitable to me in the longterm, at least when it can be predicted that many tests will have to be made.

Answer 2

You can also use VSBrowser.instance.openResources(path) to open a workspace/folder in VSCode instance;

import { WebDriver, VSBrowser } from 'vscode-extension-tester';
import path = require('path');
...

suite('Sample Test suite XYZ', () => {
    const test_project_path = path.join(__dirname, "path", "to", "prj");
    
    setup(async () => {
        driver = VSBrowser.instance.driver;
        driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(1000);
    });

    test("Open a workspace in VSCode instance", async () => {
        await VSBrowser.instance.openResources(path.resolve(test_project_path));
    });

});

...

Answer 3

The accepted answer does not work for me in 2023. I could not get VS Code to open a workspace through modifying the launch.json .

Instead, @vscode/test-electron runTests takes a launchArgs argument. If the first argument is a directory this will be opened as workspace.

await runTests({extensionDevelopmentPath, 
                extensionTestsPath, 
                launchArgs:[path_to_directory] 
               });

For testing, I set this to a temporary directory created by tmp-promise . My runTests.ts is:

import * as path from "path";
import { runTests } from "@vscode/test-electron";
import { file, dir } from 'tmp-promise';

async function main() {
  try {
    const extensionDevelopmentPath = path.resolve(__dirname, "../../");
    const extensionTestsPath = path.resolve(__dirname, "./suite/index");

    const {path:tempdir, cleanup} = await dir({unsafeCleanup:true});
    await runTests({extensionDevelopmentPath, 
                    extensionTestsPath, 
                    launchArgs:[tempdir] });
    cleanup();
  } catch (err) {
    console.error("Failed to run tests");
    process.exit(1);
  }
}

main();

The sample in the VS Code test repository is good place to look to get a good, presumably up-to-date, example to work from.