VS Tasks

Telescope plugin to load and run tasks in a project that conform to VS Code's Editor Tasks

Features

• ⚙ Run commands in a terminal!
  • split or float the terminal
  • source from ./vscode/tasks.json
  • source from package.json scripts
• 👀 Run any task as a watched job
• 🧵 Run any task in the background as a job
• 📖 Browse history of completed background jobs
• ✏️ edit input variables that will be used for the session
• Use VS Code's variables in the command (limited support, see desired features)
• Use VS Code's launch.json pattern (limited support)
• ⟳ Run tasks from your history, sorted by most used
• 🐚 run shell commands with .run() or
• basic support for option picker for task input (similar to extension.commandvariable.pickStringRemember)
• dependsOn and dependsOrder support, utilizing the background jobs feature. View with JobHistory and Jobs

Example

Short Demo

Setup

With Plug:

Plug 'nvim-lua/popup.nvim'
Plug 'nvim-lua/plenary.nvim'
Plug 'nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim' " make sure you have telescope installed
Plug 'EthanJWright/vs-tasks.nvim'

With Packer:

use {
  'EthanJWright/vs-tasks.nvim',
  requires = {
    'nvim-lua/popup.nvim',
    'nvim-lua/plenary.nvim',
    'nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim'
  }
}

With Lazy:

{
  "EthanJWright/vs-tasks.nvim",
  dependencies = {
    "nvim-lua/popup.nvim",
    "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim",
    "nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim",
  },
}

Set up keybindings:

nnoremap <Leader>ta :lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.tasks()<CR>
nnoremap <Leader>ti :lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.inputs()<CR>
nnoremap <Leader>ti :lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.clear_inputs()<CR>
nnoremap <Leader>th :lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.history()<CR>
nnoremap <Leader>tl :lua require('telescope').extensions.vstask.launch()<cr>
nnoremap <Leader>tj :lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.jobs()<CR>
nnoremap <Leader>t; :lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.jobhistory()<CR>

Functions

Task Management

:Telescope vstask tasks

• Opens task picker showing all available tasks from .vscode/tasks.json and package.json scripts
• Key mappings:
  • <CR> - Run in current window
  • <C-v> - Run in vertical split
  • <C-p> - Run in horizontal split
  • <C-t> - Run in new tab
  • <C-b> - Run as background job
  • <C-w> - Run as watched background job (restarts on file save)

:Telescope vstask run

• Opens empty task picker for running arbitrary shell commands
• Supports same key mappings as tasks

:Telescope vstask inputs

• Opens input variables picker
• Set values for task variables
• Supports:
  • promptString (text input)
  • pickString (selection from list)

:Telescope vstask history

• Shows previously run tasks, sorted by usage frequency
• Supports same key mappings as tasks

:Telescope vstask launch

• Opens launch configuration picker from .vscode/launch.json
• Key mappings:
  • <CR> - Run in current window
  • <C-v> - Run in vertical split
  • <C-p> - Run in horizontal split
  • <C-t> - Run in new tab

Job Management

:Telescope vstask jobs

• Shows running background tasks
• Key mappings:
  • <CR> - View output in current window
  • <C-v> - View output in vertical split
  • <C-w> - Toggle watch mode (restart on save)
  • <C-d> - Kill task
• Features:
  • Live output preview
  • Watch mode for auto-restart
  • Task status indicators

:Telescope vstask jobhistory

• Shows completed background tasks
• Key mappings:
  • <CR> - View output in current window
  • <C-v> - View output in vertical split
• Features:
  • Exit status indication
  • Runtime duration
  • Full output history

Utility Functions

:Telescope vstask clear_inputs

• Clears all stored input variable values for current session

Autodetect

VS Tasks can auto detect certain scripts from your package, such as npm scripts.

Configuration

• Configure toggle term use
• Configure terminal behavior
• Cache json conf sets whether the config will be ran every time. If the cache is removed, this will also remove cache features such as remembering last ran command

lua <<EOF
require("vstask").setup({
  cache_json_conf = true, -- don't read the json conf every time a task is ran
  cache_strategy = "last", -- can be "most" or "last" (most used / last used)
  config_dir = ".vscode", -- directory to look for tasks.json and launch.json
  telescope_keys = { -- change the telescope bindings used to launch tasks
    vertical = '<C-v>',
    split = '<C-p>',
    tab = '<C-t>',
    current = '<CR>',
    background = '<C-b>',
    watch_job = '<C-w>',
    kill_job = '<C-d>',
    run = '<C-r>',
  },
  autodetect = { -- auto load scripts
    npm = "on"
  },
  terminal = 'nvim',-- can be 'nvim' or 'toggleterm'
  term_opts = {
    vertical = {
      direction = "vertical",
      size = "80"
    },
    horizontal = {
      direction = "horizontal",
      size = "10"
    },
    current = {
      direction = "float",
    },
    tab = {
      direction = 'tab',
    }
  },
  json_parser = vim.json.decode
})
EOF

Work with json5 files

VS Code uses json5 which allows use of comments and trailing commas. If you want to use the same tasks as your teammates, and they leave trailing commas and comments in the project's task.json, you will need another parser than the default vim.fn.json_decode.

A proposed solution: Add the following to your dependencies.

lua <<EOF
    {
      'Joakker/lua-json5',
      run = './install.sh'
    }
EOF

And add the following option in the setup:

lua <<EOF
require("vstask").setup({
    json_parser = require('json5').parse
})
EOF

Example

Tasks.json

In your project root set up .vscode/tasks.json (default config directory set to .vscode, but can be changed in setup)

{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "default": "",
      "description": "Some term",
      "id": "phrase",
      "type": "promptString"
    },
    {
      "type": "command",
      "id": "cowsay",
      "command": "extension.commandvariable.pickStringRemember",
      "args": {
        "description": "what type of cow?",
        "options": [
          ["normal cow", "mooooo"],
          ["imposture", "bark bark"]
        ]
      }
    }
  ],
  "tasks": [
    {
      "command": "echo ${input:phrase} | cowsay",
      "label": "🐮 Cowsay",
      "problemMatcher": [],
      "type": "shell"
    },
    {
      "command": "echo ${input:cowsay} | cowsay",
      "label": "🐮 Cowsay with arg list",
      "problemMatcher": [],
      "type": "shell"
    },
    {
      "command": "echo ${relativeFile} | cowsay",
      "label": "Relative File",
      "problemMatcher": [],
      "type": "shell"
    },
    {
      "command": "echo ${relativeFileDirname} | cowsay",
      "label": "Relative File Dirname",
      "problemMatcher": [],
      "type": "shell"
    },
    {
      "args": ["hello", "world"],
      "command": "echo ",
      "label": "Arg Hello World",
      "problemMatcher": [],
      "type": "shell"
    },
    {
      "command": "sleep 1 ; echo 'hello from subtask 1' > /tmp/tmp.txt",
      "label": "subtask 1",
      "type": "shell"
    },
    {
      "command": "sleep 1 ; echo 'hello from subtask 2' >> /tmp/tmp.txt",
      "label": "subtask 2",
      "type": "shell"
    },
    {
      "command": "cat /tmp/tmp.txt",
      "label": "hello from subtask",
      "type": "shell",
      "dependsOrder": "sequence",
      "dependsOn": ["subtask 1", "subtask 2"]
    },
    {
      "command": "echo 'starting server' ; sleep 5 ; echo 'stopping server'",
      "label": "server",
      "type": "shell"
    },
    {
      "command": "echo 'starting client' ; sleep 5 ; echo 'stopping client'",
      "label": "client",
      "type": "shell"
    },
    {
      "label": "start server and client",
      "dependsOn": ["server", "client"]
    }
  ],
  "version": "2.0.0"
}

Functions

lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.tasks() -- open task list in telescope
lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.inputs() -- open the input list, set new input
lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.history() -- search history of tasks
lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.close() -- close the task runner (if toggleterm)
lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.jobs() -- view and manage background tasks (Enter to kill)
lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.run() -- open menu to type cli cmd and run it with standard bindings

You can also configure themes and pass options to the picker

lua require("telescope").extensions.vstask.tasks(require('telescope.themes').get_dropdown()) -- open task list in telescope

You can also grab the last run task and do what you want with it, such as open it in a new terminal:

function _RUN_LAST_TASK()
  local vstask_ok, vstask = pcall(require, "vstask")
  if not vstask_ok then
    return
  end
  local cmd = vstask.get_last()
  vim.cmd("vsplit")
  vim.cmd("term " .. cmd)
end

Features to implement

Full VS Code variable support

All variables available in VS Code should also work in this plugin, though they are not all tested.

Extend support for VS Code schema

At this point only the features I need professionally have been implemented. The implemented schema elements are as follows:

• Tasks: Label
• Tasks: Command
• Tasks: ID
• Inputs: Description
• Inputs: Default

As I do not use VS Code, the current implementation are the elements that seem most immediately useful. In the future it may be good to look into implementing other schema elements such as problemMatcher and group.