backend-in-vscode.md

Setup to work on the backend in VS Code

TL:DR:

1. Open the/app directory in vscode.
2. Make sure you have both the Docker and Remote - Containers extensions installed.
3. Open the Command Palate by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+P
4. Start typing Reopen in Container
5. Navigate to and hit ENTER on the Remote-Containers: Reopen in Container option. This will reopen the current directory open in VSCode into a container.

From here you can debug the backend as you would any Python application in VS Code.

Prerequisites

Install the following extensions

• Remote - Containers
• Docker
• Python (The Python extension is auto installed when loading app dir in container as per devcontainer.json)
• Some language server like Pylance

1. Open the app sub-directory in VS Code

This will not work if you open any subdirectory inside the app folder such as the backend directory, Python will spit out errors about the lack of pip and other stuff (let me know if you can get this working).

2. Reopen this directory in a container

Either click on the icon of two arrows pointing at each other in the lower left and select "Reopen in Container" or open the Command Palete (CTRL + SHIFT + P on Windows), search for "Reopen in Container" and press enter on the option "Remote-containers: Reopen in COntainer.

This automatically builds and reopens the app directory in a container (default directory is workspace which has the contents of the app directory)

From here you can interact with the codebase as if you were using VS Code regularly. Check to see if the backend runs properly by navigating to app.py and hitting CTRL + F5 (on Windows)

If the backend runs properly, you can continue with debugging the code as you normally would in VS Code.

Let me or one of the other devs know if there are any issues with this and any issues will be addressed ASAP.