VSCode Settings

vs code settings - instructions.md

System / Auto Light or Dark Mode

To sync your VS Code workbench theme with your operating system's light or dark mode, you need to enable the auto-detect setting.

• Open the Command Palette by pressing
• Ctrl + Shift + P (Windows/Linux) or
• Cmd + Shift + P (macOS).
• Open User Settings (JSON) and press Enter.
• Add the following lines to your configuration.

{
  "window.autoDetectColorScheme": true,
  "workbench.preferredDarkColorTheme": "Default Dark Modern",
  "workbench.preferredLightColorTheme": "Default Light Modern"
}

Funky Color Themes

For funky color themes, follow this link: https://gist.github.com/tangoabcdelta/235764d1c234020c26644387b77f6629

Profile settings for Bash and Z-shell

Tune your .zprofile to verify .bash_profile before proceeding:

# Check if .bash_profile exists and source it
if [ -f "$HOME/.bash_profile" ]; then
    . "$HOME/.bash_profile"
fi

Open VSCode from Terminal

Put a VScode alias in .bash_profile to verify:

alias code="/Applications/Visual\ Studio\ Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/bin/code"

Writing Paths in bash and z-shell

And tune your .zshrc file as well:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

# Add other paths
export PATH="/Users/tangoabcdelta/bin:$PATH"

Excluding Files from VSCode

Temporary Exclusion (Search Sidebar)

If you only want to exclude it for your current search session:

• Open Search
• Press Ctrl + Shift + F (Windows/Linux) or Cmd + Shift + F (Mac).
• Expand Search Options
• Click the three dots (... ) icon below the search input to show more options.
• Files to Exclude: In the "files to exclude" field, type node_modules.
• Toggle Settings: Ensure the gear icon (Use Exclude Settings and Ignore Files) is highlighted/active so that your default exclusions are applied.
• Enter Pattern: Type **/node_modules and click OK.

Hide from File Explorer

Note: If you also want to hide it from the File Explorer (sidebar), repeat this process for the files.exclude setting.

Alternatively, you can add this directly to your settings.json:

file:json"search.exclude": {
    "**/node_modules": true
}

Example File

{
    "window.autoDetectColorScheme": true,
    "workbench.preferredDarkColorTheme": "Dark Modern",
    "workbench.preferredLightColorTheme": "Light Modern",
    "security.workspace.trust.untrustedFiles": "open",
    "debug.javascript.autoAttachFilter": "disabled",
    "search.exclude": {
        "**/node_modules": true
    },
    "files.exclude": {
        "**/dist": true,
        "**/node_modules": true
    },
    "files.watcherExclude": {
        "**/dist": true,
        "**/node_modules": true
    },
    "diffEditor.codeLens": true,
    "workbench.secondarySideBar.defaultVisibility": "hidden",
    "http.proxy": "http://proxy.org.com:9999",
    "http.noProxy": [
        ".org.com",
        ".org-suborg.com",
        ".suborg-org.com",
        "bitly-org",
        "SOMENAME",
        ".local",
        "169.254/16"
    ],
    "http.proxySupport": "override",
    "http.proxyStrictSSL": true,
    "http.systemCertificates": true,
    "http.fetchAdditionalSupport": true,
    "http.systemCertificatesNode": false
}

Puppeteer

Default Directory Path for puppeteer

your-project/
└── node_modules/
    └── puppeteer/
        └── .local-chromium/
            └── mac-722234/
                └── chrome-mac/
                    └── Chromium.app <--- Your app goes here

Skip puppeteer Installation

• Adding puppeteer_skip_chromium_download=true to the root .npmrc is intended for skipping the download process for puppeteer
• Alternatively, you can download and save your chromium binary and save it and add instructions to pick up puppeteer from only the specified locations. Generally, these instructions are kept in a rc file e.g. .puppeteerrc.cjs.

// .puppeteerrc.cjs
// convert this to pupperterrc json config

// PUPPETEER_DOWNLOAD_BASE_URL
// PUPPETEER_CACHE_DIR=/Users/<$USER>/PUPPETEER_CACHE_DIR/chrome-mac/Chromium.app
// PUPPETEER_CACHE_DIR_2=/Applications/Chromium.app
// Note: Leaving downloadBaseUrl as an empty string (or omitting it) tells Puppeteer to use its default hosting URL. If you have a specific internal mirror URL, just pop it inside the quotes!

const fs = require('fs');

// Check if the primary directory exists, otherwise fallback to the second one
const primaryPath = '/Users/<$USER>/PUPPETEER_CACHE_DIR/chrome-mac/Chromium.app';
const fallbackPath = '/Applications/Chromium.app';
const chosenCacheDir = fs.existsSync(primaryPath) ? primaryPath : fallbackPath;

module.exports = {
  downloadBaseUrl: process.env.PUPPETEER_DOWNLOAD_BASE_URL || '',
  cacheDirectory: chosenCacheDir,
};

---

Disable autocomplete for text files vscode

To disable autocomplete for text files (.txt) in Visual Studio Code, you must add language-specific rules to your settings.json file. This approach prevents text files from throwing distracting code snippets or unrelated text suggestions while leaving autocomplete fully active for your programming languages.

Method 1: Edit settings.json Directly (Recommended)

1. Open the command palette by pressing Ctrl + Shift + P (Windows/Linux) or Cmd + Shift + P (Mac).
2. Type Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON) and press Enter.
3. Paste the following block inside your main configuration object (ensure commas are properly formatted between parameters):

"[plaintext]": {
    "editor.quickSuggestions": {
        "other": false,
        "comments": false,
        "strings": false
    },
    "editor.suggest.showWords": false,
    "editor.suggest.showSnippets": false,
    "editor.wordBasedSuggestions": "off",
    "editor.inlineSuggest.enabled": false
}

Method 2: Configure via the Settings UI

If you prefer using the visual interface instead of editing raw JSON, follow these steps:

1. Open an existing .txt file in your workspace.
2. Look at the bottom-right status bar and click on the text that says Plain Text.
3. Select Configure 'Plain Text' language based settings... from the drop-down menu that pops up.
4. This action will automatically generate and open the targeted [plaintext] bracket inside your settings file.
5. You can now use the standard UI search bar to lookup properties like Quick Suggestions or Inline Suggest and turn them off safely under that profile.

Note: If you write notes in other non-code environments like Markdown, you can chain languages together in your JSON file using "[markdown][plaintext]": { ... }. [1]