Is there any way to set environment variables in Visual Studio Code?

Question

How can I set up environment variables in Visual Studio Code?

Answer 1

Assuming you mean for a debugging session(?) then you can include a env property in your launch configuration.

If you open the .vscode/launch.json file in your workspace or select Debug > Open Configurations then you should see a set of launch configurations for debugging your code. You can then add to it an env property with a dictionary of string:string.

Here is an example for an ASP.NET Core app from their standard web template setting the ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT to Development :

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": ".NET Core Launch (web)",
      "type": "coreclr",
      "request": "launch",
      "preLaunchTask": "build",
      // If you have changed target frameworks, make sure to update the program path.
      "program": "${workspaceFolder}/bin/Debug/netcoreapp2.0/vscode-env.dll",
      "args": [],
      "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
      "stopAtEntry": false,
      "internalConsoleOptions": "openOnSessionStart",
      "launchBrowser": {
        "enabled": true,
        "args": "${auto-detect-url}",
        "windows": {
          "command": "cmd.exe",
          "args": "/C start ${auto-detect-url}"
        },
        "osx": {
          "command": "open"
        },
        "linux": {
          "command": "xdg-open"
        }
      },
      "env": {
        "ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Development"
      },
      "sourceFileMap": {
        "/Views": "${workspaceFolder}/Views"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": ".NET Core Attach",
      "type": "coreclr",
      "request": "attach",
      "processId": "${command:pickProcess}"
    }
  ]
}

Answer 2

In the VSCode launch.json you can use "env" and configure all your environment variables there:

{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {           
            "env": {
                "NODE_ENV": "development",
                "port":"1337"
            },
            ...
        }
    ]
}

Answer 3

You can load an environment file by setting the envFile property like this:

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Launch",
      "type": "go",
      "request": "launch", 
      "mode": "debug",
      "remotePath": "",
      "port": 2345,
      "host": "127.0.0.1",
      "program": "${workspaceFolder}",
      "envFile": "${workspaceFolder}/.env",
      "args": [], 
      "showLog": true
    }
  ]
}

Place the .env file in your folder and add vars like this:

KEY1="TEXT_VAL1"
KEY2='{"key1":val1","key2":"val2"}'

Further Reading: Debugging go in vscode with environment variables

Answer 4

I run vscode from my command line by navigating to the folder with the code and running

code .

If you do that all your bash/zsh variables are passed into vs code. You can update your .bashrc/.zshrc file or just do

export KEY=value

before opening it.

Answer 5

For C/C++ debugging this works for me (docs):

// Defined per configuration in launch.json
"environment": [
    {
        "name": "<env_name>",
        "value": "<env_value>"
    }
]

Answer 6

Could they make it any harder? Here's what I did: open system properties, click on advanced, add the environment variable, shut down visual studio and start it up again.

Answer 7

My response is fairly late. I faced the same problem. I am on Windows 10. This is what I did:

• Open a new Command prompt (CMD.EXE)
• Set the environment variables . set myvar1=myvalue1
• Launch VS Code from that Command prompt by typing code and then press ENTER
• VS code was launched and it inherited all the custom variables that I had set in the parent CMD window

Optionally, you can also use the Control Panel -> System properties window to set the variables on a more permanent basis

Hope this helps.

Answer 8

For the VS Code process

VS Code's environment (the environment variables it has) will be its environment as it was given when it was created (see also Changing environment variable of a running process. TL;DR you generally can't change a process' environment variables after it has been created).

• You can start VS Code with custom environment variables (Ex. by using the env UNIX command)

• You can run VS Code from an environment that already contains the environment variable as you want it, since most Operating Systems will make child processes inherit the environment of their parent processes by default.

• You can modify your system's environment variables (which all processes in the user space inherit by default (if I understand correctly)). Ex.

  • For Windows: What are PATH and other environment variables, and how can I set or use them?)
  • For macOS: How do I set environment variables on OS X? / Setting environment variables on OS X
  • For Ubuntu: How do I set environment variables?
  • or some other configuration point that gets sourced for user processes, such as ~/.profile (related: What is the difference between .profile and .bash_profile and why don't I have a .profile file on my system?).

Note that with macOS and Linux installations, VS Code will try to source an environment from shell-specific user-level configuration files (Ex. ~/.bashrc and ~/.zshrc) even when not manually launched from such shells by creating such a shell and starting itself from that shell. For relevant documentaiton, see here.

See also How can I specify environment variables for the VS Code process in my VS Code settings?

For shell processes in the integrated terminal

See the terminal.integrated.env.<platform> settings, where <platform> is one of "windows", "osx", or "linux". The setting's description reads:

Object with environment variables that will be added to the VS Code process to be used by the terminal on <platform>. Set to null to delete the environment variable.

See also the related terminal.integrated.inheritEnv setting. Its description reads:

Whether new shells should inherit their environment from VS Code, which may source a login shell to ensure $PATH and other development variables are initialized. This has no effect on Windows.

For task processes

Use the task's options property's env property. Similar to the terminal.integrated.env.<platform> setting, this setting's value is a JSON object mapping environment variable names to values. The setting's description reads:

The environment of the executed program or shell. If omitted the parent process' environment is used.

For run / debug processes (launch.json)

Each launch configuration can decide how it wants to allow you to configure this. According to VS Code's documentation, "Many debuggers support some of the following attributes: [...] env - environment variables (the value null can be used to "undefine" a variable)". Other extensions that contribute launch configuration types may use a different schema, such as the cppdbg from the cpptools extension, which uses a format like [ { "name": "config", "value": "Debug" } ].

For processes related to specific extensions

This is only if those extensions contribute settings to do such configuration.

For example,

• The CMake Tools extension contributes various settings, which are documented here, including cmake.environment, cmake.configureEnvironment, cmake.buildEnvironment, and cmake.testEnvironment.
• The Python extension has the python.envFile setting, and launch configurations of the python type can also have a envFile property. You can find related docs here.

There's a slightly related feature-request about this here for the extension host process: API: allow an extension to change the environment variables #152806. See also this comment there about more broadly applying it to the "root" VS Code process, this update/summary, and this note about using process.env for the extension host.

Answer 9

If you've already assigned the variables using the npm module dotenv, then they should show up in your global variables. That module is here.

While running the debugger, go to your variables tab (right click to reopen if not visible) and then open "global" and then "process." There should then be an env section...

Answer 10

Since VS Code uses powershell in the terminal. The powershell command is

$env:NAME='VALUE'

To learn more: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/how-to-set-environment-variables-using-powershell

Answer 11

As it does not answer your question but searching vm arguments I stumbled on this page and there seem to be no other. So if you want to pass vm arguments its like so

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "type": "java",
      "name": "ddtBatch",
      "request": "launch",
      "mainClass": "com.something.MyApplication",
      "projectName": "MyProject",
      "args": "Hello",
      "vmArgs": "-Dspring.config.location=./application.properties"
    }
  ]
}