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Dapr Visual Studio Code extension overview

How to develop and run Dapr applications with the Dapr extension

Dapr offers a preview Dapr Visual Studio Code extension for local development which enables users a variety of features related to better managing their Dapr applications and debugging of your Dapr applications for all supported Dapr languages which are .NET, Go, PHP, Python and Java.

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Features

Scaffold Dapr debugging tasks

The Dapr extension helps you debug your applications with Dapr using Visual Studio Code’s built-in debugging capability.

Using the Dapr: Scaffold Dapr Tasks Command Palette operation, you can update your existing task.json and launch.json files to launch and configure the Dapr sidecar when you begin debugging.

  1. Make sure you have a launch configuration set for your app. (Learn more)
  2. Open the Command Palette with Ctrl+Shift+P
  3. Select Dapr: Scaffold Dapr Tasks
  4. Run your app and the Dapr sidecar with F5 or via the Run view.

Scaffold Dapr components

When adding Dapr to your application, you may want to have a dedicated components directory, separate from the default components initialized as part of dapr init.

To create a dedicated components folder with the default statestore, pubsub, and zipkin components, use the Dapr: Scaffold Dapr Components Command Palette operation.

  1. Open your application directory in Visual Studio Code
  2. Open the Command Palette with Ctrl+Shift+P
  3. Select Dapr: Scaffold Dapr Components
  4. Run your application with dapr run --resources-path ./components -- ...

View running Dapr applications

The Applications view shows Dapr applications running locally on your machine.


Screenshot of the Dapr VSCode extension view running applications option

Invoke Dapr applications

Within the Applications view, users can right-click and invoke Dapr apps via GET or POST methods, optionally specifying a payload.


Screenshot of the Dapr VSCode extension invoke option

Publish events to Dapr applications

Within the Applications view, users can right-click and publish messages to a running Dapr application, specifying the topic and payload.

Users can also publish messages to all running applications.


Screenshot of the Dapr VSCode extension publish option

Additional resources

Debugging multiple Dapr applications at the same time

Using the VS Code extension, you can debug multiple Dapr applications at the same time with Multi-target debugging.

Community call demo

Watch this video on how to use the Dapr VS Code extension:


Last modified January 18, 2023: `components-path` --> `resources-path` in how-tos and quickstarts (#3016) (235626fa)