Publishing Extensions

How to Publish an Extension

This guide describes publishing to the public registry at open-vsx.org. The same steps apply to registries that are hosted elsewhere, but make sure to pass the correct URL to the ovsx tool.

1. Create an access token

Log in to open-vsx.org and navigate to the Access Tokens page (click on your avatar → Settings → Access Tokens). When you log in for the first time, you need to confirm the request for personal user data to your authentication provider (GitHub).

Click Generate New Token and enter a description. We recommend to generate a new token for each environment where you want to publish, e.g. a local machine, cloud IDE, or CI build. The description will help you to identify a token in case you want to revoke it (you don't need it anymore or you suspect it has been stolen).

Click Generate Token and copy the generated value to a safe place, e.g. an encrypted file in your local file system or the secret variables of your cloud IDE / CI settings. Note that the value is never displayed again after you close the dialog! In case you lose a token, delete it and generate a new one.

2. Create the namespace

The publisher field in your extension's package.json file defines the namespace in which the extension will be made available. You need to create the namespace in the registry before any extension can be published to it. This is done with the ovsx CLI tool. The easiest way to use it is through npx, which makes sure you always use the latest version of the tool. Alternatively, install it globally with npm i -g ovsx.

Run the following command, replacing <name> with the value of your extension's publisher and replacing <token> with the previously generated access token value.

npx ovsx create-namespace <name> -p <token>

Creating a namespace does not automatically give you the exclusive publishing rights. Initially, everyone will be able to publish an extension with the new namespace. If you want exclusive publishing rights, you can claim ownership of the namespace.

3. Build and upload

If you have an already packaged .vsix file, you can publish it by simply running the following command, replacing <file> with the path to your extension package and replacing <token> with the previously generated access token value.

npx ovsx publish <file> -p <token>

In order to build and publish an extension from source, first make sure to prepare the project accordingly, typically by running npm install or yarn. Then run the following command in the root directory of the extension, replacing <token> with the previously generated access token value.

npx ovsx publish -p <token>

If the extension uses Yarn as build tool, add the argument --yarn.

4. See the result

If the ovsx tool reported that publishing was successful, you should find your extension on open-vsx.org. Please check all metadata for correctness.