WSL Remote

Overview

• An independent, Apache-2.0 WSL remote for VSCodium and other VS Code builds that do not ship Microsoft's Remote - WSL extension.
• One server per window runs as a child of the editor and stops when the window closes; dropped connections reconnect to the running server.
• Forwards ports, and falls back to the distribution's IP address when WSL does not forward localhost.

Common Uses

• Develop inside WSL 2 from VSCodium.
• Give each editor its own environment through the server-env-setup hook, for example a separate CODEX_HOME with PlanSwap.
• Work on Alpine or distributions with an unusual PATH.

Requirements

• Windows 10 21H1 or later, or Windows 11, with WSL 2.
• wget or curl and tar inside the distribution.
• Do not install it next to ms-vscode-remote.remote-wsl or jeanp413.open-remote-wsl; two resolvers for the same authority conflict.

Install

1. 1

   Search for WSL Remote in the Extensions view, or run codium --install-extension n2ns.wsl-remote. VSCodium installs from Open VSX; editors configured for the Visual Studio Marketplace find the same extension there.

2. 2

   Or download wsl-remote-<version>.vsix from GitHub Releases and install it with codium --install-extension.

Configure

1. 1

   Enable the resolvers API proposal: on first start WSL Remote offers to add itself to enable-proposed-api in argv.json (backed up first). Quit the editor completely and start it again.

2. 2

   To run codium . from a plain WSL shell, export VSCODE_WSL_EXTENSION_ID=n2ns.wsl-remote in your shell profile.

3. 3

   Optional settings: connectHost, serverDownloadUrlTemplate, extensionHostEnv, defaultExtensions, server start and install lock timeouts, and a debug trace.

Tools / Commands

• Open a folder or workspace in WSL from the Remote Explorer view, the status bar menu, or the command palette.
• Reopen Folder in WSL.
• WSL: Show Log shows what the setup script did.

Resources / Settings

• Downloads and starts the editor's own server (codium-server for VSCodium) inside the distribution, verified against the publisher's checksum when available.
• Sources ~/<serverDataFolderName>/server-env-setup before the server starts, like Microsoft's extension does.
• Uses the same server layout and pid files as Microsoft's and jeanp413's extensions, so tools that locate the server keep working.