Revisit VS Code folder structure for app data, settings, extensions

Config is stored in ~/.config/Code[ - <quality>]/User. To match platform conventions (lowercase and hyphens for everything) as well as to keep consistency with the cli code[-<quality>] I propose we change the settings directory one of:

• ~/.config/code[-<quality>]/user
• ~/.vscode[-<quality>] (see https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/3883)
• ~/.code[-<quality>] (to prevent using ‘vs’ showing up in the OSS build as it is now)

If we moved this it would probably require some discovery/migration on first launch of a newer version.

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The below is a living document.

Proposed folder structure

Notes:

• I don’t think we should be encouraging the use of admin rights within vscode, instead a permissions elevation dialog would probably be better than allowing a specific place for root user data #5561
• I want to clean up the whole code vs vscode thing in this change; only official builds should carry the visual studio branding, that should carry over to the config directories consistently as well.
• The CLI args --user-data-dir and --extensions-dir will need to be adjusted for this, something like --config-dir and --cache-dir would probably be better.

Windows

Old

Settings:                %APPDATA%\Code[ - Variant]\User\settings.json
Keybindings:             %APPDATA%\Code[ - Variant]\User\keybindings.json
Snippets:                %APPDATA%\Code[ - Variant]\User\snippets\
Workspace storage:       %APPDATA%\Code[ - Variant]\User\workspaceStorage\
Chromium user data:      %APPDATA%\Code[ - Variant]\
Extensions:              %USERPROFILE%\.vscode[-variant]\extensions\

New

Settings:                %APPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\settings.json
Keybindings:             %APPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\keybindings.json
Snippets:                %APPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\snippets\
Workspace storage:       %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\workspaceStorage\
Chromium user data:      %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\userdata\
Extensions:              %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\extensions\

Notes:

• Note that %APPDATA% is roaming and %LOCALAPPDATA% is local, meaning extensions will not be carried across multiple machines until a solution is devised for #15442. An extension manifest, eg. %APPDATA%\Microsoft\[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]\extensions.json which automatically installs extensions is my thinking of solving this problem.

Linux

Old

Settings:                $HOME/.config/Code[ - Variant]/User/settings.json
Keybindings:             $HOME/.config/Code[ - Variant]/User/keybindings.json
Snippets:                $HOME/.config/Code[ - Variant]/User/snippets/
Workspace storage:       $HOME/.config/Code[ - Variant]/User/workspaceStorage/
Chromium user data:      $HOME/.config/Code[ - Variant]/
Extensions:              $HOME/.vscode[-variant]/extensions/ (not moving)

New

Settings:                $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/[vs]code[-variant]/settings.json
Keybindings:             $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/[vs]code[-variant]/keybindings.json
Snippets:                $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/[vs]code[-variant]/snippets/
Workspace storage:       $XDG_CACHE_HOME/[vs]code[-variant]/workspaceStorage/
Chromium user data:      $XDG_CACHE_HOME/[vs]code[-variant]/userdata/
Extensions:              $XDG_CACHE_HOME/[vs]code[-variant]/extensions/

Notes:

• Thanks to @ollie27 and others for calling out the XDG Base Directory Specification, see that document for fallbacks to the environment variables.
• $XDG_CACHE_HOME would be best for extensions provided there is an extensions manifest in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME #15442.
• Maybe extensions should live in $XDG_DATA_HOME?

Mac

Old

Settings:                $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code[ - Variant]/User/settings.json
Keybindings:             $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code[ - Variant]/User/keybindings.json
Snippets:                $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code[ - Variant]/User/snippets/
Workspace storage:       $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code[ - Variant]/User/workspaceStorage/
Chromium user data:      $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code[ - Variant]/
Extensions:              $HOME/.vscode[-variant]/extensions/ (not moving)

New

Settings:                $HOME/Library/Application Support/[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]/settings.json
Keybindings:             $HOME/Library/Application Support/[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]/keybindings.json
Snippets:                $HOME/Library/Application Support/[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]/snippets/
Workspace storage:       $HOME/Library/Application Support/[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]/workspaceStorage/
Chromium user data:      $HOME/Library/Application Support/[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]/userdata/
Extensions:              $HOME/Library/Application Support/[Visual Studio ]Code[ - Variant]/extensions/

Notes:

• Is there a similar standard for dividing cache and config files on Mac? http://stackoverflow.com/a/5084892/1156119

[Alumniminium]

I can’t believe this hasn’t been fixed in over FOUR YEARS.

[ZerdoX-x]

Sorry, but I’m tired of trash in my home directory