Getting Started with VS Code

VS Code is a lightweight but powerful source code editor that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. It supports dozens of languages out of the box and can be extended with thousands of extensions from the marketplace.

• Free and open-source (MIT licence)
• Built on Electron / Node.js
• First released in 2015 — now used by 70M+ developers
• Cross-platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, and even the browser via vscode.dev

Head to code.visualstudio.com and click the big Download button. The site automatically detects your OS. Stable builds are released monthly; Insiders builds ship daily.

# After install, confirm VS Code is on your PATH
code --version
# e.g.  1.90.0  abc1234  x64

On first launch VS Code greets you with the Welcome tab. From here you can open a folder, clone a repository, or install recommended extensions. Pin this tab so it opens every session via Help › Welcome.

Key things to do on day one: open a folder (Ctrl+K Ctrl+O), install a language extension, and try the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P).

VS Code works best when you open an entire folder rather than individual files. Use File › Open Folder or drag a folder onto the window. The Explorer sidebar will show all files instantly.

mkdir my-first-project && cd my-first-project
code .   # open current folder in VS Code

Before moving on, make sure you can answer these questions:

• What keyboard shortcut opens the Command Palette?
• How do you open a whole folder in VS Code?
• What is the difference between Stable and Insiders builds?

In the next lesson we'll explore the full VS Code interface in detail.