VS Code

Three variants are available:

Variant	Port Forwarding	Extensions	Best For
`code-server`	Required	Open VSX only	Open-source alternative, no Microsoft account
`vscode-server`	Required	All (Copilot, Pylance)	Full VS Code, direct connection
`vscode-tunnel`	Not required	All (Copilot, Pylance)	When port forwarding is difficult

condatainer helper -u
condatainer helper code-server -w      # open-source
condatainer helper vscode-server -w    # full VS Code
condatainer helper vscode-tunnel -w    # no port forwarding

See Helper Scripts for SSH port forwarding setup, resource flags, configuration, and reuse mode.

code-server

Open-source VS Code served in the browser. Does not support Microsoft-proprietary extensions (Copilot, Pylance). Use vscode-server if you need those.

Flags

condatainer helper code-server --help

Flag	Description	Default
`--password,-p`	Browser password (empty = no auth)	(empty)

See Helper Scripts for resource and overlay flags.

vscode-server

Uses the official VS Code CLI (code) to serve a full VS Code instance in your browser. All extensions — including Microsoft-proprietary ones (Copilot, Pylance, Remote, etc.) — are available.

Flags

condatainer helper vscode-server --help

Flag	Description	Default
`--token,-a`	Connection token for the web UI	(auto-generated)

See Helper Scripts for resource and overlay flags.

vscode-tunnel

Uses Microsoft’s relay service — no SSH port forwarding needed. Authenticate once with GitHub or Microsoft, then connect your local VS Code by tunnel name.

Local VS Code ←→ Microsoft relay ←→ Compute node

Note

vscode-tunnel is a singleton helper — only one instance can run at a time (tunnel names must be unique per account).

Flags

condatainer helper vscode-tunnel --help

Flag	Description	Default
`--auth,-a`	Auth provider: `github` or `microsoft`	`github`
`--name,-n`	Tunnel machine name	`<username>-<hostname>`

See Helper Scripts for resource and overlay flags.

Authentication

On first run (or after token expiry):

To sign in, use a web browser to open the page https://microsoft.com/devicelogin
and enter the code FE2G6WJQK to authenticate.

Authentication times out after 10 minutes — run again if it expires.

The access URL is https://vscode.dev/tunnel/<name>/... — connect via the VS Code Remote - Tunnels extension or open it in a browser.

Common Issues

Inode quota issues

VS Code stores data under $HOME by default, which can exhaust the HOME inode quota on HPC systems. Redirect to high-inode storage (SCRATCH, VAST, or similar) with symlinks — set this up once on the login node:

# Replace /path/to/high-inode-storage with your SCRATCH, VAST, etc.
HIGH_INODE=/path/to/high-inode-storage

# code-server: extensions
mkdir -p "$HIGH_INODE/.local/share/code-server"
ln -sfn "$HIGH_INODE/.local/share/code-server" "$HOME/.local/share/code-server"

# vscode-server and vscode-tunnel: CLI runtime
mkdir -p "$HIGH_INODE/.vscode"
ln -sfn "$HIGH_INODE/.vscode" "$HOME/.vscode"

# vscode-server: extensions
mkdir -p "$HIGH_INODE/.vscode-server"
ln -sfn "$HIGH_INODE/.vscode-server" "$HOME/.vscode-server"

Connection token issues (vscode-server)

The token is embedded in the URL as tkn=<token>. Copy the full URL from the output.

Machine name already taken (vscode-tunnel)

condatainer helper vscode-tunnel config set MACHINE_NAME my-unique-name