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Overview

Productivity Extensions

ryan ryan
July 9, 2026
4 min read
code extensions productivity

Ryan’s Productivity Extensions

Extensions

All extensions included within my extension pack have their own unique use-case, and why i’ve picked them, here i’ll go over the whys

Better Comments

Writing well documented code continues to be one of the most important skills for developers. One way of doing such task, is writing concise and readable comments. This extension is suited for the latter, with the use of different colors and styles we can visualize a hierarchy making important notes stand out. Some of the useful annotations are namely TODO’s and Alerts, making sure our fellow colleges don’t waste hours just to find out the method was deprecated 2 years ago ;)

Error Lens

Error Lens continues to be my most favorite productivity extension. Writing code is a frustrating task, an extra comma is all it takes for hours of debugging only to rewrite your exact same code for it to work (not that i’ve experienced that myself). Error lens enhances VsCodes diagnostic features providing features such as inline error messages, highlighting the pesky line of code.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks are an accessible way to mark positions of code, jump between them and give them names. They provide both a standalone sidebar section, as-well as lines being noted with a blue bookmark icon.

Code Spell checker

Hey, It’s not that our English sucks, rather a 10x developers only is in pursuit of writing the next Facebook. lmfao

Git History

Visual studio code somewhat has implemented Git History already, this extension acts as a powerful standalone tool, providing interactive commit logs, branches, and file changes.

GitLens

When it comes to Git, one extension dominates. Blame annotations is one hell of a feature. It provides information such as who wrote a line of code, and how long ago. Powerful features described are Interactive Code History, Accelerate PR Reviews, and Streamline collaboration.

Copilot

Though any experience developer knows artificial intelligence doesn’t got anything on us, it still serves as a valuable tool streamlining a developers inherent passion for laziness wooooweee. A popular extension to this is IntelliCode which is also included.

Other AI extensions are:

I’ve refrained from including these, cause honestly for me they serve as a nuisance, yet automated documentations sound promising.

Indent Rainbows

Developers of indentation based languages wait is that really even the word? know that its a hassle to keep track of whats going on. Languages using the off-side rule wow thats posh like Python, Haskell, Yaml, and others know the value of this.

Live share

If you’ve ever tried to help someone code, you know the frustration of opening a laggy google meet call, just for them to stay confused by the end of it. Live share allows for seamless connectivity and collaboration between parties.

Prettier

VsCodes built-in formatting sucks. Prettier isn’t just a language specific formatter, from Markdown to Scss its got you all covered. Just remember to set it as your default vscode formatter. Styling standards

settings.json

{
  "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode",
  "[javascript]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode"
  }
}

Project Manager

When dealing with codebases such as micro-services, you know the hassle of switching projects. This extension aims to make that process coherent. Organizing projects with tags, and identify deleted/renamed projects.

SonarCude

A favorite of mine when it comes to static code analysis enhancing code quality and security.

Testing Explorer UI

Easily run tests in the sidebar of VsCode. Works with most testing frameworks, just that you need to install the appropriate adaptor found on their extension page.

Code runner

Nothing is as useful as code runner when you want to test simple code, without the hassle of compiling and such.

Docker

Though this is an environment specific extension, this extension is way too useful not to be included as a general productivity tool.

SSH

Any developer knows the hassle of using the command line to interact with SSH. This VsCode extension makes that process incredibly harmonious.

TODO Tree

Though i mentioned better comments allows for TODO’s getting highlighted, there is nothing as valuable as a standalone list of all your TODO’s in your sidebar.

Thanks for reading

If you like what i’ve done, sharing a review, giving feedback, and contributing would be lovely. Here is the official github repository for this project a little star goes a long way ;)