Now when you go to https://vscode.dev, you’ll be presented with a lightweight version of VS Code running fully in the browser. Open a folder on your local machine and start coding.

No install required.

With the availability of vscode.dev, we begin to finally realize our original vision of building a development tool that can run fully serverless in the browser. For a full history lesson, check out Erich Gamma’s VS Code Day talk “VS Code An Overnight Success…10 Years in the Making”.

Modern browsers that support the File System Access API (Edge and Chrome today) allow web pages to access the local file system (with your permission). This simple gateway to the local machine quickly opens some interesting scenarios for using VS Code for the Web as a zero-installation local development tool, such as:

• Local file viewing and editing. Quickly take notes (and preview!) in Markdown. Even if you are on a restricted machine where you cannot install the full VS Code, you may still be able to use vscode.dev to view and edit local files.
• Build client-side HTML, JavaScript, and CSS applications in conjunction with the browser tools for debugging.
• Edit your code on lower powered machines like Chromebooks, where you can’t (easily) install VS Code.
• Develop on your iPad. You can upload/download files (and even store them in the cloud using the Files app), as well as open repositories remotely with the built-in GitHub Repositories extension.

And, if your browser doesn’t support local file system APIs, you’ll still be able to open individual files by uploading and downloading them via the browser.

GitHub

Many extensions for VS Code work with source code that is stored in GitHub. For example, the CodeTour extension lets you create guided walkthroughs of a code base and the WikiLens extension turns VS Code and your repository into a powerful note taking tool (with bi-directional linking). To make it easy to access your code in GitHub, VS Code for the Web comes with the GitHub Repositories, Codespaces, and Pull Request extensions built in. You can make quick edits, review PRs, and Continue on to a local clone or even better, to a GitHub Codespace, if you want more powerful language experiences or need to build, run, and test the changes prior to merging the commits.

Read all the details in the announcement post and kick the tires at https://vscode.dev