5 VSCode Extensions to increase Productivity
Tags: beginners, programming, vscode, productivity
Published: 2023-01-19 12:25:23

Visual Studio Code is an editor first and foremost, and includes the features you need for highly productive source code editing.
Visual Studio Code is an open-source text editor, so the software's code is accessible for anyone to see, modify, and distribute to their liking. It is, by far, the most popular code editor, with 141K+ Stargazers and 1.7K+ contributors on GitHub. This code editor is really powerful despite it's light weight.

![Surprised](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/3p0fujzbhhnbagr7g9ec.gif)
## Extensions
Extensions are add-ons that allow you to customize and enhance your experience in Visual Studio by adding new features or integrating existing tools. An extension can range in all levels of complexity, but its main purpose is to increase your productivity and cater to your workflow

> VSCode extensions let you add languages, debuggers, and tools to your installation to support your development workflow. VS Code's rich extensibility model lets extension authors plug directly into the VS Code UI and contribute functionality through the same APIs used by VS Code.

![Best!](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/74cwlz4si566swolkqoz.gif)

In this article, I have curated powerful 5 VSCode extensions that will help improve your programming productivity in VSCode rapidly.

### - [Documatic](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Documatic.documatic)

![snip](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/nip5dg8od2aphknez107.png)

This extension brings [Documatic](https://documatic.com) to VSCode: quickly search your large codebases using simple queries - what does it do? what dependencies does it have? And more.
Documatic search uses AI to link relations between your query and snippets of code, so you don't have to know the exact keywords you're looking for!
![extension](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DocumaticAI/documatic-vscode-extension/master/resources/assets/vscode-demo.gif)

### - [Simple README](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=maurodesouza.vscode-simple-readme)
![snip](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/w1ynjnnrlk8ofbo3kr05.png)
Generate readme quickly and simply with Simple Readme.
Adding README to your repository is really important for every project you do. Not only will it help you keep your documentation short visible to everyone over the internet, but it also get your repo visitors hooked to the project.

This VSCode extension gives you a more faster and generic way of writing a proper and well structured README for your repositories.
Some of its features includes: 
- Support En and pt-BR languages;
- Generates title and badges by reading the name of the project on the package.json or the root folder;
- Generates a link to your Github profile; 

![demo](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/05zriyyxsxmsk2n405pv.png)


### - [Live Share](https://code.visualstudio.com/learn/collaboration/live-share)

![snip](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/8h3l54s4b5g14seyqn0g.png)

Visual Studio Live Share enables you to collaboratively edit and debug with others in real time, regardless what programming languages you're using or app types you're building. It allows you to instantly (and securely) share your current project, and then as needed, share debugging sessions, terminal instances, localhost web apps, voice calls, and more! Developers that join your sessions receive all of their editor context from your environment (e.g. language services, debugging), which ensures they can start productively collaborating immediately, without needing to clone any repos or install any SDKs.

![lshare](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/i2z11mtupgotrwk1hvhl.gif)

### - [Live Server](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ritwickdey.LiveServer)

![lserver](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/sgu8yqci62bthtyh8gth.png)
This VSCode extension helps you to Launch a development local Server with live reload feature for static & dynamic pages.
For most beginners, one headache you are likely to experience is constantly refreshing your static webpage to see changes take effect. Personally, the joy was something else when I discovered this extension. It will save you tones of time as the page gets reloaded automatically for changes to take effect as you write your code.😊
![live](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/lqtic3vya02yy9yyed4w.gif)

### - [Better Comments](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=aaron-bond.better-comments)

![snip](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4o4qtg1aswzd5xqh5w70.png)


The Better Comments extension will help you create more human-friendly comments in your code.
With this extension, you will be able to categorize your annotations into Alerts, Queries, TODOs and Highlights.
Commented out code can also be styled to make it clear the code shouldn't be there.
Any other comment styles you'd like can be specified in the settings

![demo](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/9zivx2a8uz1xj7bj5qfy.png)

## Conclusion
The shortlisted extensions above are my favorites and been really useful for my productivity.
It is also important to note that, all the extensions mention above are **Open-source**. This means their source codes are accessible on GitHub. You can easily modify them for your personal preference.

![Clap](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4gb444vmg7nuct4wz61a.gif)

Happy Hacking!
![gif](https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--TVrZFUna--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_66%2Cw_880/https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/wukog07lt3tvqobbl611.gif)

Bentil here🚀
Which of these extensions have you used before? Kindly share your experience in the comments section.
Was your favorite not mentioned? Help others to know about it in the comment section.

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