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Building a VS Code Extension to Fetch and Display Content from an API

Building a VS Code Extension to Fetch and Display Content from an API

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Cindy Muthoni
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2 min read

Creating a Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extension can be a fun and rewarding experience, especially when you see your tool being used by developers around the world. In this article, we’ll walk through building a VS Code extension that fetches and displays content from an API. We’ll break down the process into simple steps and include code snippets to guide you through the development. Let’s dive in! 🌊

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction

  2. Prerequisites

  3. Setting Up the Project

  4. Creating the Extension

  5. Fetching Data from an API

  6. Displaying Data in VS Code

  7. Running and Debugging the Extension

  8. Publishing the Extension

  9. Conclusion

Introduction

Extensions are a powerful way to enhance the capabilities of VS Code. By fetching and displaying data from an API, you can integrate external services directly into your development environment. This guide will show you how to create a VS Code extension that retrieves data from a public API and displays it in a user-friendly way. 🚀

Getting Started 🏁

Before we start, make sure you have the following prerequisites:

  • Node.js installed on your machine

  • Visual Studio Code installed

  • Basic understanding of JavaScript/TypeScript

Step 1: Setting Up Your Development Environment 🛠️

First, we’ll set up our development environment. We’ll use the Yeoman generator for VS Code extensions to scaffold our project.

1.Install Yeoman and the VS Code Extension Generator:

npm install -g yo generator-code

2.Create a new extension:

yo code

Follow the prompts to set up your project. For example:

  • What type of extension do you want to create? New Extension (TypeScript)

  • What’s the name of your extension? api-fetcher

  • What’s the identifier of your extension? api-fetcher

  • What’s the description of your extension? A VS Code extension to fetch and display content from an API.

  • Initialize a git repository? Yes

  • Which package manager to use? npm

Yeoman will generate the project structure and install the necessary dependencies. You should see a new directory with your extension’s name.

Check it Out!