How is VS Code built? What language is it built with?

How is VS Code Built?

Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is primarily built with TypeScript and JavaScript, running on the Electron framework — which bundles Node.js and Chromium to create a cross-platform desktop application.

Technology Stack

Architecture Overview

textCopy
VS Code Application
├── Electron Main Process (Node.js)
│   ├── Window management
│   ├── File system access
│   ├── Process spawning (terminals, language servers)
│   └── IPC with renderer
│
├── Electron Renderer Process (Chromium)
│   ├── Monaco Editor (TypeScript)
│   ├── UI components (TypeScript + CSS)
│   ├── Extension host
│   └── Webview panels
│
└── Extension Host Process (Node.js)
    ├── VS Code extensions run here
    ├── Isolated from main UI
    └── Language Server Protocol clients

Monaco Editor

The core text editing component (Monaco) is a separate open-source project also maintained by Microsoft. It powers:

• VS Code
• GitHub's online editor
• Many web-based code editors

javascriptCopy
// Monaco Editor is a pure web-based editor
const editor = monaco.editor.create(document.getElementById('container'), {
    value: "console.log('Hello World');",
    language: 'javascript',
    theme: 'vs-dark'
});

Extension Development

VS Code extensions are written in TypeScript or JavaScript:

typescriptCopy
// Sample VS Code extension (extension.ts)
import * as vscode from 'vscode';

export function activate(context: vscode.ExtensionContext) {
    const disposable = vscode.commands.registerCommand('myExt.hello', () => {
        vscode.window.showInformationMessage('Hello from my extension!');
    });
    context.subscriptions.push(disposable);
}

export function deactivate() {}

Why Electron?

Open Source

VS Code's source code is open-source at github.com/microsoft/vscode under MIT license. This is why Cursor and Windsurf can legally fork it.

Key numbers:

• ~2.5 million lines of TypeScript
• 15,000+ commits
• 1,500+ contributors
• Most popular IDE by developer surveys since 2018