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VS Code extension

VS Code extension release notes

The MSL extension opens folders inside a distribution from VS Code, VS Code Insiders, VSCodium or Cursor. Its source is in onexay/msl-vscode-extension. Each MSL release bundles one extension release, and msl --manage-ide installs it. The extension uses VS Code’s proposed remote-resolver API, so it isn’t on the Visual Studio Marketplace. See Get started with VS Code.

0.2.0

1 October 2026 · bundled with MSL 0.3.0 and later · GitHub release

  • Breaking: needs MSL 0.3.0 or later. Each connection VS Code opens to a distribution (the server connection, forwarded ports) runs as its own msl --connect process, so a stuck connection affects only itself. The extension no longer uses msld’s connect socket, which MSL 0.3.0 removed.

0.1.1

25 September 2026 · bundled with MSL 0.1.4 and later · GitHub release

  • The extension runs the MSL that set it up (#35). msl --manage-ide --install records its own path, and the extension reads it, so MSL can be installed anywhere without setting msl.path. The lookup order is the msl.path setting, then the recorded path, then ~/.local/bin/msl, /usr/local/bin/msl and PATH.

This release was first published in the msl repository; the copy in msl-vscode-extension has the identical file (SHA-256 8123ad8ddb6afd42b04db6a176144b64c710d4a5c01e91c0750539530e2e812a).

0.1.0

25 September 2026 · GitHub release

The first release as a separate download. No MSL release bundled it: MSL 0.1.4, the first with the extension, shipped 0.1.1.

  • Opens folders inside a distribution: MSL: Connect to Distro, or vscode-remote://msl+<distro>/<path>. The window stays on macOS, while the terminal, language servers, debuggers and extensions run in the distribution.
  • Connects through msld’s connect socket and the VM’s internal channel. It uses no SSH and opens no network port on macOS. With an older msld, it falls back to one msl process per connection.
  • Installs the VS Code Server that matches your IDE’s version into the distribution. It downloads the server on macOS and caches it for every distribution, so the distribution needs no curl or wget, as in stock Debian.
  • Reuses a running server only if it’s really the server and accepts connections, so it recovers after a VM restart, and starts one server when several connections open at once.
  • Forwarded ports keep a download going when the local client reads slowly, instead of cutting it off.
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