Implementing a WASI Host for Visual Studio Code
Talkat WasmCon 2023 · on Thursday, 2023-09-07· at 11:45· Grand Ballroom E, Hyatt Regency Bellevue, 900 Bellevue Way NE·
summary
VS Code implements a WASI host on the extension host API that runs a CPython→WASM interpreter, mounts the workspace into the WASM filesystem, and exposes terminals and pipes so interpreted programs actually read and write project files. Synchronization uses SharedArrayBuffer atomics between a WASM worker and the extension host, coreutils and PHP/Ruby examples run, and it ships in Insiders. Current limits: the CPython build lacks threads and dynamic linking so debugging and native packages are constrained; migration to the component model (preview2) is underway.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction to VS Code web
- 1:34Understanding vs-code.dev
- 4:02WebAssembly for extension support
- 6:56Python and WASM demonstration
- 15:00Public preview and educational use
- 16:58Current technical limitations
- 21:26Architecture and thread support
- 26:13Implementation details and proxying
- 37:31Component model and future plans
- 42:03Q&A and final thoughts
