How to use Visual Studio Code as Default Editor for Git

In the most recent release (v1.0, released in March 2016), you are now able to use VS Code as the default git commit/diff tool. Quoted from the documentations:

1. Make sure you can run code --help from the command line and you get help.

   • if you do not see help, please follow these steps:

     • Mac: Select Shell Command: Install 'Code' command in path from the Command Palette.

       • Command Palette is what pops up when you press shift + ⌘ + P while inside VS Code. (shift + ctrl + P in Windows)
     • Windows: Make sure you selected Add to PATH during the installation.
     • Linux: Make sure you installed Code via our new .deb or .rpm packages.
2. From the command line, run git config --global core.editor "code --wait"

Now you can run git config --global -e and use VS Code as editor for configuring Git. Add the following to enable support for using VS Code as diff tool:

[diff]    tool = default-difftool[difftool "default-difftool"]    cmd = code --wait --diff $LOCAL $REMOTE

This leverages the new --diff option you can pass to VS Code to compare two files side by side.

To summarize, here are some examples of where you can use Git with VS Code:

• git rebase HEAD~3 -i allows to interactive rebase using VS Code
• git commit allows to use VS Code for the commit message
• git add -p followed by e for interactive add
• git difftool <commit>^ <commit> allows to use VS Code as diff editor for changes

For what I understand, VSCode is not in AppData anymore.

So Set the default git editor by executing that command in a command prompt window:

git config --global core.editor "'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft VS Code\code.exe' -w"

The parameter -w, --wait is to wait for window to be closed before returning. Visual Studio Code is base on Atom Editor. if you also have atom installed execute the command atom --help. You will see the last argument in the help is wait.

Next time you do a git rebase -i HEAD~3 it will popup Visual Studio Code. Once VSCode is close then Git will take back the lead.

Note: My current version of VSCode is 0.9.2

I hope that help.

Another useful option is to set EDITOR environment variable. This environment variable is used by many utilities to know what editor to use. Git also uses it if no core.editor is set.

You can set it for current session using:

export EDITOR="code --wait"

This way not only git, but many other applications will use VS Code as an editor.

To make this change permanent, add this to your ~/.profile for example. See this question for more options.

Another advantage of this approach is that you can set different editors for different cases:

1. When you working from local terminal.
2. When you are connected through SSH session.

This is useful especially with VS Code (or any other GUI editor) because it just doesn't work without GUI.

On Linux OS, put this into your ~/.profile:

# Preferred editor for local and remote sessionsif [[ -n $SSH_CONNECTION ]]; then # SSH mode  export EDITOR='vim'else # Local terminal mode  export EDITOR='code -w'fi

This way when you use a local terminal, the $SSH_CONNECTION environment variable will be empty, so the code -w editor will be used, but when you are connected through SSH, then $SSH_CONNECTION environment variable will be a non-empty string, so the vim editor will be used. It is console editor, so it will work even when you are connected through SSH.