What Visual Studio Code does
Visual Studio Code is a free, open-source code editor published by Microsoft, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is licensed under the MIT license, meaning the source code is publicly available and the editor can be used without cost for any purpose. At its core, VS Code is a source-code editor that provides IntelliSense — its term for context-aware code completion, parameter hints, and signature help — across a wide range of programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C++, Go, Rust, Java, PHP, and many more. Language support is either built in or delivered through extensions from the integrated marketplace. The editor ships with a built-in Git client that handles staging, committing, branching, diffing, and merging without leaving the editor window. An integrated terminal lets developers run shell commands, build scripts, and test runners in the same window as their code. The debugging toolset supports setting breakpoints, stepping through code, inspecting variables, and viewing call stacks for multiple languages and runtimes. VS Code's extension marketplace substantially expands the editor's capabilities: developers can add linters, formatters, test runners, database clients, theme packs, and keybinding sets. The Remote Development extension family allows editing files that live inside a Docker container, a Windows Subsystem for Linux environment, or a remote machine over SSH, with the editing experience feeling local in each case. Settings Sync lets users keep their extensions, keybindings, snippets, and preferences consistent across different machines. The Profiles feature allows storing and switching between entirely separate configurations per project or workflow. This page links to the full standalone offline installer sourced directly from Microsoft's official distribution servers. For safety, only download Visual Studio Code from the official publisher or the domain shown on this page (vscode.download.prss.microsoft.com).
