Top 15 VSCode Extensions We Use at Zensurance that Will Boost Your Experience in 2023

Visual Studio Code is one of the most used source-code editors among our engineering team at Zensurance. Productivity is key while working together as teams and the Visual Studio Code Community offers some productivity tools called "extensions" that you can install to your local instance and increase the efficiency of your daily life.

Here are some of our favourite extensions that we use to boost our VSCode experience.

1. Better Comments
   

• Total Downloads: 3,672,684
  
  
• This super useful tool provides colourful rendering for inline code comments. The extension will help you create more human friendly notes, great for onboarding!
  
  
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2. Code Spell Checker
   

• Total Downloads: 5,347,031
  
  
• The primary focus of this extension is to help improve spelling as we write code.
  
  
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3. GitHub Pull Requests and Issues
   

• Total Downloads: 7,846,602
  
  
• This extension allows you to review and manage GitHub pull requests and issues in Visual Studio Code. It gives you the ability to list, browse through existing PR and Issues, easy checkout functionalities, inline comment highlights, you name it. One of my personal favourites.
  
  
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4. GitLens
   

• Total Downloads: 17,659,604
  
  
• Ah, GitLens. The extension that simply helps you better understand code. Quickly glimpse into why and when a line or code block was changed, and see who changed it. Jump back through history to gain further insights as to how and why the code evolved. Effortlessly explore the history and evolution of a codebase.
  
  
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5. Turbo Console Log
   

• Total Downloads: 3,672,684
  
  
• This extension makes debugging much easier by automating the operation of writing meaningful log messages via console.
  
  
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6. Notes
   

• Total Downloads: 34,050
  
  
• This extension allows you to store your notes in VSCode using Markdown. Notes are stored in a single location (directory) located anywhere on your system you'd like. This allows you to store notes locally or inside a cloud service like Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc. Notes are written in Markdown and are stored as .md files within the Notes storage directory.
  
  
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7. Jest Runner
   

• Total Downloads: 560,413
  
  
• This extension allows you to run Jest suites inline using VSCode. It provides the ability to run or debug a specific case within a suite. Very useful when we need to focus on isolated tests.
  
  
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8. Excel Viewer
   

• Total Downloads: 2,678,166
  
  
• This extension provides custom editors and previews for CSV files and Excel spreadsheets in Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio Code for the Web. It allows you to custom search and provide custom editing, full undo, redo operations. If you're working with .xlsx or .xlsm or .csv, it really is an essential tool!
  
  
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9. DotENV
   

• Total Downloads: 3,235,974
  
  
• This extension supports syntax highlighting for variables in a .env files, super handy!
  
  
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10. SonarLint
    

• Total Downloads: 1,390,606
  
  
• SonarLint lets you fix coding issues before they exist! Like a spell checker, SonarLint highlights Bugs and Security Vulnerabilities as you write code, with clear remediation guidance so you can fix them before the code is even committed. SonarLint in VS Code supports analysis of C, C++, HTML, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python and TypeScript.
  
  
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11. CodeSnap
    

• Total Downloads: 583,040
  
  
• 📸 Take beautiful screenshots of your code in VS Code! When showing code to others, this extension makes code look better than ever!
  
  
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12. markdownlint
    

• Total Downloads: 4,140,136
  
  
• The Markdown markup language is designed to be easy to read, write, and understand. markdownlint is an extension for the Visual Studio Code editor that includes a library of rules to encourage standards and consistency for Markdown files.
  
  
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13. Code Runner
    

• Total Downloads: 15,181,201
  
  
• This extension is one of the most downloaded extensions in the VSCode marketplace. It simply creates a runnable environment using the VSCode debug console and allows you to run a code snippet in a lot of different languages. Checkout the list of languages they support!
  
  
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14. Material Icon Theme
    

• Total Downloads: 3,672,684
  
  
• If you're a visual person, you'll appreciate this extension when navigating through files in the side-nav. It uses material icons to render a specific image based on its file extension and its name context. Very useful!
  
  
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15. Alphabetical Sorter
    

• Total Downloads: 62,143
  
  
• This extension allows you to sort variables alphabetically! 😎
  
  
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We hope you enjoyed this edition of productivity tools. For more productivity tools, please have a look at https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/.

Thank you so much for reading, see you next time!