Run / Open VSCode from Mac Terminal

Question

I'd like to run / open Visual Studio Code from the Mac OSX Terminal by running this command code .. I found instructions here:

https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/setup

Apparently I need to include this in my .bashrc file, so I did, but to no avail.

code () {     if [[ $# = 0 ]]     then         open -a "Visual Studio Code"     else         [[ $1 = /* ]] && F="$1" || F="$PWD/${1#./}"         open -a "Visual Studio Code" --args "$F"     fi } 

I edited the .bashrc file here:

~/.bashrc which points to /Users/username/.bashrc

Which .bashrc should I be editing?

Answer 1

Try this one

Open Visual Studio Code and press Command + Shift + P or F1 then type Shell in command palette now you are able to find this option like Shell Command : Install code in PATH from suggested list in command palette. Select that options.

That's it.

Now open your terminal type.

$ code . 

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To make this change persist after restart on MacOS

Many Mac users find this is forgotten and needs to be re-applied after any restart. This may happen if MacOS has applied the quarantine attribute to VS Code, which the OS uses for the "Are you sure?" notice applied on first using apps downloaded from the internet.

To check if this attribute is applied, look for com.apple.quarantine in the list returned by this command (changing the path if that's not where you installed it):

xattr "/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app" 

If that does return com.apple.quarantine, you can remove the attribute using the same command with the -d flag (alongside -r to recursively remove it from all contained files and sudo to allow the change):

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app" 

...then do Shell Command : Install code in PATH as above after the attribute has been removed, and it should persist after restart.

Credit: derflounder.wordpress.com article linked to by RicardoVallejo in this comment.

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Answer 2

I just want to pull out Benjamin Pasero's answer from inside his comment as it seems the best solution. It is the tip given on the Setting up Visual Studio Code page where it says ...

If you want to run VS Code from the terminal, append the following to your ~/.bash_profile file (~/.zshrc in case you use zsh).

code () { VSCODE_CWD="$PWD" open -n -b "com.microsoft.VSCode" --args $* ;} 

Now, you can simply type code . in any folder to start editing files in that folder. [Or code test.txt to go to work on the test.txt file]