Publishing Extensions to the Visual Studio Marketplace on Mac

The Visual Studio Marketplace is a platform where developers can share their extensions with the community. To publish an extension to this marketplace, you need to follow certain guidelines and create a publisher identity. In this article, we will guide you through the process of creating a publisher identity and publishing your first extension.

Creating a Publisher Identity

To create a publisher identity, you need to include a publisher name in your package.json file. This is an essential step as it identifies who can publish extensions to the Visual Studio Code Marketplace. To do this:

1. Create a new Personal Access Token (PAT) by selecting 'New Token' on the PAT page.

2. Set the scopes to 'Custom defined' and choose the 'Marketplace > Manage scope'.

3. Set the organization to 'All accessible organizations'.

Creating an Organization in Azure DevOps

To publish an extension, you need to create a new organization in Azure DevOps. This is because Vsce can only publish extensions using Personal Access Tokens.

1. Follow the documentation to create your own organization in Azure DevOps.

2. Create at least one organization to publish an extension.

Guidelines for Publishing Extensions

Before publishing your extension, there are certain guidelines you need to follow:

* Images in README.md and CHANGELOG.md may not be SVGs unless they are from trusted badge providers.

* Image URLs in README.md and CHANGELOG.md need to resolve to https URLs.

* The badges provided in the package.json may not be SVGs unless they are from trusted badge providers.

* The icon provided in package.json may not be an SVG.

Using Vsce Commands

Vsce is a command-line tool that helps you manage VS Code extensions. It can be used to:

* Register a publisher ID

* Package, publish, and unpublish extensions

* Search for metadata and retrieve extension information

Here are some examples of vsce commands:

```bash

$ cd myExtension

$ vsce package # Generate myExtension.vsix

$ vsce publish # Publish myExtension to the VS Code Marketplace

```

Publishing Your Extension

Once you have created a high-quality extension, you can publish it to the VS Code Extension Marketplace. To do this:

1. Package your extension using vsce.

2. Share your extension with other users.

By following these guidelines and using the vsce command-line tool, you can easily package and publish your extensions to the Visual Studio Code Marketplace on Mac.

Visual studio marketplace mac