Allow to configure watcher to watch only opened files

Problem: I am running VS Code on Linux in an environment where the maximum number of files I can watch is 8k. I do not have root permissions to change those settings. The workspaces I’m working on have multiple thousand source files and exceed this limit easily.

fs.inotify.max_user_instances = 128
fs.inotify.max_user_watches = 8192

What I’m looking for: I’m looking for a way to avoid running out of inotify watch slots, but still get notified if a file I have open in the editor changes, e.g. due to a git checkout to another branch.

I looked around in the code and in the documentation, and I’m unsure as to what behavior is actually expected w.r.t. the file watcher, open files, file watcher excludes, etc. I’m even unsure who consumes file watcher events for files which are not open in the editor, or in other words: what functionality breaks if some unopened files are not watched?

[beauxq]

Is there any way to see a list of the files vscode is trying to watch?

I tried adding all the large folders to files.watcherExclude, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

[the-supercoach]

Is there any way to see a list of the files vscode is trying to watch?

I tried adding all the large folders to files.watcherExclude, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

If you’re accessing a remote host, open the output panel (ctrl + shift + u) and then open the Remote Log. That should give you details of the watchers. I submitted a pull request for the inotify script that may also help - it shows the full command for the watcher processes.