Managing IDE extensions

Manage IDE extensions in Che workspaces to control which extensions are available, trusted, and pre-installed for users across different IDE types. Extension management is essential for air-gapped environments, security-conscious organizations, and teams that need consistent developer tooling.

IDEs in Che use extensions to provide language support, debugging, linting, and other development tools. The Microsoft Visual Studio Code - Open Source editor manages extensions through the Open VSX registry.

Che supports five registry configurations:

  1. Embedded Open VSX registry. Runs in the plugin-registry pod and supports air-gapped, offline, and proxy-restricted environments. Contains a default subset of extensions that you can customize.

  2. Public Open VSX registry. The community-hosted registry at open-vsx.org, accessed over the internet. Provides the full catalog of openly published extensions.

  3. Standalone Open VSX registry. A self-hosted instance deployed on a network accessible from Che workspace pods. Provides full control over available extensions for organizations that need a curated, private registry.

  4. Operator-managed Open VSX registry. An Open VSX server and PostgreSQL database deployed and managed by the Che Operator as cluster operands. The Operator handles provisioning, database setup, exposure through the Che gateway, and lifecycle management. Enable it by setting spec.components.openVSXRegistry.enable in the CheCluster custom resource.

  5. Managed Open VSX registry. A commercially supported, hosted registry operated by the Eclipse Foundation. Provides a cloud-hosted Open VSX registry without requiring self-hosted infrastructure. See Open VSX Managed Registry for available plans.

Additional resources