semantic-release-vsce

semantic-release-vsce

semantic-release plugin to package and publish VS Code extensions.

Step	Description
verify	Verify the presence and the validity of the authentication (set via environment variables) and the package.json
prepare	Generate the .vsix file using vsce, this can be be controlled by providing packageVsix in config. Note: If the OVSX_PAT environment variable is set, this step will still run
publish	Publish the extension

Install

npm install --save-dev semantic-release-vsce

or

yarn add --dev semantic-release-vsce

Usage

The plugin can be configured in the semantic-release configuration file:

{
  "plugins": [
    "@semantic-release/commit-analyzer",
    "@semantic-release/release-notes-generator",
    [
      "semantic-release-vsce",
      {
        "packageVsix": true
      }
    ],
    [
      "@semantic-release/github",
      {
        "assets": [
          {
            "path": "*.vsix",
            "label": "Extension File"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  ]
}

Configuration

Option	Type	Description
packageVsix	boolean or string	If set to true, the plugin will generate a .vsix file. If is a string, it will be used as value for --out of vsce package.
publish	boolean	The plugin will publish the package unless this option is set to false, in which case it will only package the extension vsix.

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
VSCE_PAT	Required unless publish is set to false. The personal access token to publish the extension of VS Code Marketplace
OVSX_PAT	Optional. The personal access token to push to OpenVSX

Publishing to OpenVSX

Publishing extensions to OpenVSX using this plugin is easy:

1. Get a valid personal access token with the correct privileges to the publisher namespace in OpenVSX. In order to get the personal access token, check this page.

2. Configure the OVSX_PAT environment variable in your CI with the token that you created.

3. The plugin will automatically detect the environment variable and it will publish to OpenVSX, no additional configuration is needed. Enjoy!

Github Actions Example

name: release

on:
  push:
    branches: [master]

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: 16
      - name: Install Node Dependencies
        run: npm ci
      - name: Release
        run: npx semantic-release
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          VSCE_PAT: ${{ secrets.VSCE_PAT }}