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Pulumi VS Code Extension

    The Pulumi Tools extension for VS Code brings Pulumi’s core capabilities directly into your editor. With it, you can:

    • Run and debug Pulumi programs with the full VS Code debugger.
    • Get Pulumi YAML language support, including type checking, hover tooltips, and completion.
    • Create and manage Pulumi ESC environments, secrets, and configuration without leaving the IDE.

    Prerequisites

    Before you begin, ensure you have the following:

    Installation

    Install the extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace, or search for “Pulumi” in the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X) within VS Code. The extension supports both single-folder workspaces and multi-root workspaces.

    Debugging Pulumi programs

    The extension lets you launch and debug Pulumi programs with breakpoints and the full functionality of the VS Code debugger. It automatically generates debug configurations to run pulumi up or pulumi preview for the current stack, and you can also create a custom launch.json configuration.

    For step-by-step instructions, see Attaching a debugger to a Pulumi program.

    Pulumi YAML language support

    Along with the many programming languages Pulumi supports, you can also define infrastructure using Pulumi YAML. The extension provides rich editing support for this YAML dialect, built on the Pulumi YAML Language Server Protocol (LSP), which is available for use in any IDE.

    Type checking

    The Pulumi YAML LSP provides contextual warnings and errors directly within the editor:

    • Warnings when a variable is defined but never referenced.
    • Errors for invalid YAML documents.
    • Reference errors for non-existent variables.

    Hover tooltips

    Hover over a resource type token or function type token to see a popup with its description, helping you understand your resources and functions.

    Completion lists

    The extension offers semantic completion for:

    • Predefined Pulumi YAML keys, such as resources or properties.
    • Resource properties and function arguments.
    • Type tokens for resources and functions.
    • Structured variables, such as references to properties within complex objects.

    Managing ESC environments

    The extension lets you manage your Pulumi ESC environments without leaving VS Code. From the primary sidebar, open the Pulumi ESC Explorer view and select login to authenticate to Pulumi Cloud. Once logged in, you will see a tree of your organizations and their environments.

    Create and edit environments

    Select the plus (+) icon next to an organization to create a new project and environment, or next to a project to add an environment to it. Select an existing environment in the tree to open it in the editor, where you get completion, error checking, and other IDE features. Each time you save, the extension creates a new environment revision, giving you version control over your changes. Expand an environment node to browse its revisions, and use the tag icon on a revision to label it.

    You can also hover over an environment in the Explorer to delete it, generate a pulumi env run command in the terminal, or search and refresh the tree from the icons at the top of the view.

    Open vs. decrypt an environment

    These are two distinct operations:

    • Open (the Preview button, top-right of the editor) fully resolves the environment: it decrypts secrets, invokes dynamic providers, and expands all configuration values into your chosen output format.
    • Decrypt (the decrypt icon shown on hover) only unlocks the stored secrets without resolving providers or interpolations, which is useful when moving or cloning environments with their secrets intact.

    Code navigation and comparison

    The editor supports Go to Definition and Find all References across symbols, interpolations, and values. To diff two environments or revisions, right-click (or control-click) the first node and choose Select for compare, then right-click another node and choose Compare with selected.