How to connect your local VS Code to a workshop

Use workshopsJetBrains Gateway →

A local VS Code instance can connect to a remote workshop environment via the vscode-remote SDK, giving you the full VS Code experience against Workshop.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have these requirements satisfied:

SSH access

Workshop sets up SSH access to workshops on its own. It configures the OpenSSH client on your local machine and maintains a certificate authority that signs an SSH host certificate for every workshop’s SSH server and a user certificate authenticating you as the workshop user. Connecting to a workshop by its hostname needs no key management, passwords, or host-key prompts.

Add the SDK (optional)

Add the vscode-remote SDK to your workshop definition:

workshop.yaml
name: dev
base: ubuntu@24.04
sdks:
  - name: vscode-remote

This preserves the files installed by VS Code when you use workshop refresh.

Launch the workshop

Launch the workshop if it isn’t already running:

$ workshop launch

Then find the workshop hostname:

$ workshop info

name:      dev
base:      ubuntu@24.04
project:   ~/my-project
hostname:  dev.my-project.wp
...

Use the hostname from the workshop info output when configuring VS Code.

Connect with VS Code

In VS Code, press F1 to open the command palette, start typing Connect to Host, then choose the Remote-SSH option. Enter the hostname from workshop info, e.g. dev.my-project.wp. In the terminal prompt, you’ll see that the IDE is running inside your workshop.

Note

If you’re having trouble finding the Remote-SSH option, mind that it’s enabled by the Remote - SSH extension from the extension pack mentioned above.

See also

Explanation:

Reference: