How to make Visual Studio Code check entire project for errors?

Question

I'm using VS Code for TypeScript/JavaScript development. When I open a file it will check that file for errors. The problem is if I'm refactoring (like I move some shared code to a new location or change a name) it won't show me the errors this caused until I open the file with the problem. ...so if I want to do extensive refactoring I have to open every file just to make it scan the file for errors.

How can I make VS Code scan the whole project for errors without having to open each file one by one manually?

Answer 1

VS Code (v1.44) has an experimental feature, that allows project wide error reporting in TS. Try it out:

// put this line in settings.json
"typescript.tsserver.experimental.enableProjectDiagnostics": true

Answer 2

Figured it out. Note this answer is specific to TypeScript, which is what I am using. Here it is:

Make sure typescript is installed globally (I just had mine installed locally apparently): npm install -g typescript

Then in VS Code press Shift+Ctrl+B. If you don't have a task runner set up it will ask what you want. I selected typescript and the tasks.json file will look like this:

{
    "version": "0.1.0",
    "command": "tsc",
    "isShellCommand": true,
    "args": ["-p", "."],
    "showOutput": "silent",
    "problemMatcher": "$tsc"
}

Then pressing Shift+Ctrl+B (or Shift+Command+B in macOS) will check the entire project for problems and they will be reported in your "problems" panel.

Answer 3

For the most recent version of tasks.json this is the correct json, following deprecations in version 1.14. Create this as /.vscode/tasks.json

{
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "command": "tsc",
    "type": "shell",
    "args": [
        "-p",
        "."
    ],
    "presentation": {
        "reveal": "silent"
    },
    "problemMatcher": "$tsc"
}

Answer 4

If you don't want to install TypeScript globally, you can do the following:

1. Install TypeScript locally on the project, that is yarn add --dev typescript or npm install --save-dev typescript.

2. Add a check-types run script to ./package.json. --noEmit means that the compiler will won't generate any JavaScript files.

{
  "scripts": {
    "check-types": "tsc --noEmit"
  }
}

3. Let VSCode know about the run script in /.vscode/tasks.json.

{
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "tasks": [
    {
      "type": "npm",
      "script": "check-types",
      "problemMatcher": [
        "$tsc"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

4. To run the tasks hit the F1 key and select 'Run Task', and then 'npm: check-types'.

5. If you add the following lines to the task, pressing Ctrl+B will run it.

   "group": { "kind": "build", "isDefault": true }