Practice & Assessment
Test your understanding of VS Code Setup and WSL2 Integration
Multiple Choice Questions
5A developer opens VS Code by running code . from their WSL2 terminal. What does the green status bar in the bottom-left corner indicate when connected correctly?
What is the difference between User Settings and Workspace Settings in VS Code?
Which launch.json property tells the VS Code debugger to keep the Node.js process alive and restart automatically when files change?
A developer installs the Prettier extension but format on save is not working. They have editor.formatOnSave set to true. What is the most likely missing configuration?
What keyboard shortcut opens the VS Code Command Palette?
Coding Challenges
1VS Code Workspace Configuration Generator
Write a Node.js script called setup-vscode.js that, when run from a project directory, creates a .vscode/ folder containing: (1) settings.json with formatOnSave, tabSize 2, defaultFormatter prettier, and trimTrailingWhitespace, (2) launch.json with two debug configurations: a simple Node launch and a nodemon launch, (3) extensions.json with recommendations for prettier, eslint, and errorlens. If .vscode/ already exists, the script should merge new keys rather than overwrite. Use fs.existsSync, JSON.parse, and JSON.stringify with 2-space indent. Input: none (operates on cwd). Output: created or updated .vscode files with console confirmation. Time estimate: 20-25 minutes.
Mini Project
Fully Configured VS Code Project Template
Create a reusable project template generator. Write a shell script create-project.sh that takes a project name as an argument and sets up: (1) ~/projects/name directory with src/, tests/, and .vscode/ subdirectories, (2) .vscode/settings.json with formatOnSave, zsh terminal, tabSize 2, and defaultFormatter prettier, (3) .vscode/launch.json with Node and nodemon debug configs, (4) .vscode/extensions.json with recommended extension IDs, (5) src/index.js with a minimal Express hello-world server, (6) package.json via npm init -y with start, dev (nodemon), and test scripts, (7) README.md documenting npm scripts, (8) .gitignore covering node_modules, .env, dist/, (9) git init with an initial commit. The script must print a step-by-step success log and exit cleanly if the directory already exists.