[WSL] Setting up a local version of VSCode for the Web

README.md

[WSL] Setting up a local version of VSCode for the Web

code serve-web is a locally hosted version of Visual Studio Code for the Web (Note that it's different from VSCode Server). To run it within a WSL such that it can be accessed via the Windows host's browser:

1. Install VSCode on the WSL distrbution via official download page. For example, download and install the .deb files on Debian WSL:

   sudo apt install ./code_xxxx.deb
   

2. Enable WSL to run crontab on startup 1 (systemd is by default not available in WSL 2):

   echo '[boot]\ncommand="service cron start"' | sudo tee -a /etc/wsl.conf > /dev/null
   

3. Add the command into crontab:

   crontab -e
   @reboot DONT_PROMPT_WSL_INSTALL=1 /usr/bin/code serve-web --host 127.0.0.1 --port 59005 --without-connection-token
   

4. Restart WSL:

   wsl.exe --shutdown
   

5. Now open the browser on Windows host, and access http://127.0.0.1:59005.