Quarkus developer joy for VS Code

Previously, generating a Maven-based Quarkus project required you to run a Maven command or create a project with code.quarkus.io. Now you can create a new project right from a user interface in VS Code. This can be done through a new wizard that generates Maven-based Quarkus projects with the latest version of Quarkus.

To launch the wizard call the Quarkus: Generate a Maven project command from the command palette.

The wizard will ask you for the project’s groupId, artifactId, project version, package name, resource name, and target directory. It also lets you select Quarkus extensions to add to your new project. If you selected Quarkus extensions through the wizard before, the "Last Used" option lets you easily select all previously chosen extensions.

After the project is generated, VS Code will automatically open a new window with the folder containing the new Quarkus project. Alongside the project files, Maven wrapper files are also included.

The VS Code extension provides snippets to create new Quarkus resources and tests, which can help speed up your workflow. You can use these snippets by calling the Insert Snippet VS Code command or by simply typing the snippet prefix in a Java file. Pressing tab will place the cursor to the next location of interest.

The VS Code extension provides a separate wizard for adding Quarkus extensions to the current project.

To launch the wizard call the Quarkus: Add extensions to current project command from the command palette.

After selecting the desired Quarkus extension(s), the Maven command to add the selected extensions will run in VS Code’s integrated terminal.

Starting a debug session with the VS Code extension’s debug command automatically creates and adds a new VS Code task and debug configuration in the project folder. This step allows VS Code to automatically start the Quarkus application by running the quarkus:dev command when you start a debug session. The debugger will attach to the application right after it starts. When closing the debug session, you are provided with options to terminate the Quarkus application or keep it running.

The debug command is: Quarkus: Debug current Quarkus project.

Upon opening the application.properties file, the VS Code explorer outline will provide you with a tree view containing all property keys and values. This feature is especially useful for large application.properties files because it groups properties by their namespace and profile.

The ability to hover over property keys makes it easy to view the property’s documentation. The documentation provides the property key’s value type, default value (if it exists), phase (whether the property applies at Quarkus runtime or build time), and the extension name.

As of now, there are more than 400 possible predefined Quarkus properties that could appear in an application.properties file. I challenge you to remember them all :). Because of the vast number of properties that could be configured, property key and value completion prove useful to anyone working with the application.properties file.

After opening the application.properties file, you can receive property key completion options as you type, or with the Ctrl+Space (⌥+Space for macOS) keyboard shortcut. The list of completion options is in sync with the Quarkus extensions that are currently available to the project. That means, whenever Quarkus extensions are added or removed, the list of completion options will be updated to provide you with the relevant completion options.

If the property key has a default value, it will be inserted automatically as a part of the completion.

Completion is also available for enumerated type and boolean values.

There is also completion support for mapped properties. Pressing tab after editing the property will place the cursor to the next location.

Last but not least, we have validation support for application.properties. We currently provide validation support for unknown properties, duplicate properties, and for missing equals signs.