Code Extension Marketplace
The Code Extension Marketplace is an open-source alternative to the VS Code Marketplace for use in editors like code-server.
This marketplace reads extensions from file storage and provides an API for editors to consume. It does not have a frontend or any mechanisms for adding or updating extensions in the marketplace.
Deployment
Replace $os and $arch with your operating system and architecture.
wget https://github.com/coder/code-marketplace/releases/latest/download/code-marketplace-$os-$arch -O ./code-marketplace
chmod +x ./code-marketplace
./code-marketplace server --extensions-dir /my/extensions
Run ./code-marketplace --help for a full list of options.
It is recommended to put the marketplace behind TLS otherwise code-server will reject connecting to the API.
The /healthz endpoint can be used to determine if the marketplace is ready to
receive requests.
File Storage
Extensions must be both copied as a vsix and extracted to the following path:
<extensions-dir>/<publisher>/<extension name>/<version>/
For example:
extensions
|-- ms-python
| `-- python
| `-- 2022.14.0
| |-- [Content_Types].xml
| |-- extension
| |-- extension.vsixmanifest
| `-- ms-python.python-2022.14.0.vsix
`-- vscodevim
`-- vim
`-- 1.23.2
|-- [Content_Types].xml
|-- extension
|-- extension.vsixmanifest
`-- vscodevim.vim-1.23.2.vsix
Usage in code-server
export EXTENSIONS_GALLERY='{"serviceUrl":"https://<domain>/api", "itemUrl":"https://<domain>/item", "resourceUrlTemplate": "https://<domain>/files/{publisher}/{name}/{version}/{path}"}'
code-server
If code-server reports content security policy errors ensure that the marketplace is running behind an https URL.
Reverse proxy
To host the marketplace behind a reverse proxy set either the Forwarded header
or both the X-Forwarded-Host and X-Forwarded-Proto headers.
The marketplace does not support being hosted behind a base path; it must be proxied at the root of your domain.
Getting extensions
If an extension is open source you can get it from one of three locations:
- GitHub releases (if the extension publishes releases to GitHub).
- Open VSX (if the extension is published to Open VSX).
- Building from source.
For example to download the Python extension from Open VSX:
mkdir -p extensions/ms-python/python/2022.14.0
wget https://open-vsx.org/api/ms-python/python/2022.14.0/file/ms-python.python-2022.14.0.vsix
unzip ms-python.python-2022.14.0.vsix -d extensions/ms-python/python/2022.14.0
mv ms-python.python-2022.14.0.vsix extensions/ms-python/python/2022.14.0
Make sure to both extract the contents and copy/move the .vsix file.
If an extension has dependencies those must be added as well. An extension’s
dependencies can be found in the extension’s package.json under
extensionDependencies.
Extensions under extensionPack in the extension’s package.json can be added
as well although doing so is not required.
Development
make test
mkdir -p extensions
go run ./cmd/marketplace/main.go server --extensions-dir ./extensions
When testing with code-server you may run into issues with content security policy if the marketplace runs on a different domain over HTTP; in this case you will need to disable content security policy in your browser or manually edit the policy in code-server’s source.
When you make a change that affects people deploying the marketplace please update the changelog as part of your PR.
Missing features
- Recommended extensions.
- Featured extensions.
- Download counts.
- Ratings.
- Searching by popularity.
- Published, released, and updated dates for extensions (for example this will cause bogus release dates to show for versions).
- Frontend for browsing available extensions.
- Extension validation (only the marketplace owner can add extensions anyway).
- Adding and updating extensions by extension authors.
Planned work
- jFrog integration for file storage.
- Helm chart for deployment.
