Get rid of big "Run and Debug" button for R extension #10769

juliasilge · 2025-11-25T04:50:54Z

Addresses #3681

This is a little heavy handed (I would have liked to find a solution here that involves a less dramatic change) but this area of upstream doesn't seem to involve a lot of churn, so I think it's likely useful for us to make this type of adjustment. Quarto files are another type where this whole pane is quite confusing, and we can use a similar approach in that extension (set supportsUILaunch and contribute a viewsWelcome button or something).

With this PR, you now see this in the "Run and Debug" pane for .R files:

You should still see the normal content for a .py file or .qmd file or another kind of file.

Release Notes

New Features

R: added a link to the "Run and Debug" pane with info on debugging R code.

Bug Fixes

N/A

QA Notes

You should see new, less confusing content in the "Run and Debug" pane for .R files.
You should see no change to this pane for .py, .qmd, or other types of files.

… to specify how to handle Run and Debug pane

github-actions · 2025-11-25T04:51:10Z

E2E Tests 🚀
This PR will run tests tagged with: @:critical

^readme ^{valid tags}

juliasilge · 2025-11-25T04:52:21Z

extensions/positron-r/package.json

        "type": "ark",
-        "label": "R Debugger"
+        "label": "R Debugger",
+        "languages": ["r"],


This change here is what keeps us from prompting folks to install an (incompatible) extension. At the very minimum, we should contribute a language here to avoid that prompt.

juliasilge · 2025-11-25T04:54:05Z

extensions/positron-r/package.json

-        "label": "R Debugger"
+        "label": "R Debugger",
+        "languages": ["r"],
+        "supportsUILaunch": false


When we work on building Positron itself, the IDE registers the vscode://schemas/vscode-extensions schema at startup. This item is not in that schema, so if we go this direction overall, we will see a diagnostic in this file moving forward:

Property supportsUILaunch is not allowed.

I did some exploration of how to silence this diagnostic but did not find anything quickly/easily.

juliasilge · 2025-11-25T04:55:12Z

src/vs/workbench/contrib/debug/common/debug.ts

 export const CONTEXT_DEBUGGERS_AVAILABLE = new RawContextKey<boolean>('debuggersAvailable', false, { type: 'boolean', description: nls.localize('debuggersAvailable', "True when there is at least one debug extensions active.") });
 export const CONTEXT_DEBUG_EXTENSION_AVAILABLE = new RawContextKey<boolean>('debugExtensionAvailable', true, { type: 'boolean', description: nls.localize('debugExtensionsAvailable', "True when there is at least one debug extension installed and enabled.") });
+// --- Start Positron ---
+export const CONTEXT_DEBUGGER_SUPPORTS_UI_LAUNCH = new RawContextKey<boolean>('debuggerSupportsUILaunch', true, { type: 'boolean', description: nls.localize('debuggerSupportsUILaunch', "True when the debugger for the current file supports launching from the Run and Debug UI. Some debuggers (like R) use alternative debugging approaches.") });


This new context key is what allows extensions to say, "Hey, don't turn on all the debugger buttons for this type of file."

lionel-

Works great in R files!

Experimenting with it, I found the experience to be a bit jittery and confusing with other editors though.
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c857f89f-722b-4553-bf72-90b4f45fb400

Also when no editor is opened:

Should we instead look at the currently opened console, retrieve its languageId, and use that instead of the current editor's language to determine whether to show the run and debug button?

extensions/positron-r/package.json

src/vs/workbench/contrib/debug/browser/welcomeView.ts

lionel- · 2025-12-03T14:14:46Z

src/vs/workbench/contrib/debug/browser/welcomeView.ts

+				// if (language && this.debugService.getAdapterManager().someDebuggerInterestedInLanguage(language)) {
+				// Find debuggers for this language and check if any support UI launch
+				const adapterManager = this.debugService.getAdapterManager();


There is no changes to the if condition right? Probably better to leave this as is and refetch the adapterManager below, to reduce the amount of stuff in Positron fences.

lionel- · 2025-12-03T14:43:52Z

extensions/positron-r/package.json

+        "view": "debug",
+        "contents": "Positron currently provides initial debugging support for R code.\n[Learn more](https://positron.posit.co/guide-r.html#debugging)",
+        "when": "debugStartLanguage == 'r'"


Nice! We'll be able to use this to provide a "Pause" button to interrupt a running R command and drop in the debugger. This would be ideal with a context key that indicates whether the current console is busy.

jmcphers

Did not test this since @lionel- covered that, but code LGTM.

extensions/positron-r/package.json

Co-authored-by: Jonathan <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Julia Silge <[email protected]>

Co-authored-by: Lionel Henry <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Julia Silge <[email protected]>

juliasilge · 2025-12-04T03:45:36Z

Thank you for the review, @lionel-!

I addressed a chunk of the jittery-ness with 54a2564, so it is now improved. However, there are still a couple of issues because of the debugpy extension that we bundle. It provides its welcome view content like so:

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-python-debugger/blob/bfb932334624dba517d79815a14cae0ef61e20ad/package.json#L593

That dynamicPythonConfigAvailable context key is set whenever you have a Python active editor:

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-python-debugger/blob/bfb932334624dba517d79815a14cae0ef61e20ad/src/extension/extensionInit.ts#L247

But then it is never cleared. 😱 I don't think there's a way for us to handle that from Positron, and this is why the big "Show automatic Python configurations" button follows you around once you get it. I'd like to propose we log that and think on how to best solve the problem. (Maybe they would take a PR?)

Should we instead look at the currently opened console

I do not think that would help any of this, no, because of how the debugger is so linked to the editor, and we need to offer the right debugger on, say, HTML files and other non-R, non-Python editors.

lionel- · 2025-12-04T08:59:40Z

I do not think that would help any of this, no, because of how the debugger is so linked to the editor, and we need to offer the right debugger on, say, HTML files and other non-R, non-Python editors.

To be clear my suggestion was to use the console language only for cases where there is no editor, or no associated language with the editor.

lionel-

That's a nice improvement!

I think this could be improved by not showing the Run and Debug button when no file or language are available (or by looking at the language of the active console as suggested).

That said users are not likely to have this pane open on startup, they probably only open it when actively working with R files, in which case they'll find the improved pane 👍

juliasilge · 2025-12-04T15:50:33Z

I opened #10938 for us to consider our options with the debugpy extension and that context key.

juliasilge added 3 commits November 24, 2025 16:09

Explicitly contribute debugger for R

12aef33

Make a new debugger context key CONTEXT_DEBUGGER_SUPPORTS_UI_LAUNCH…

4ce24ad

… to specify how to handle Run and Debug pane

Update Run and Debug pane for R extension

d006c83

juliasilge commented Nov 25, 2025

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juliasilge marked this pull request as ready for review November 25, 2025 15:05

juliasilge requested a review from lionel- November 25, 2025 15:05

Merged origin/main into positron-r-contributes-debugger

cb74ce6

juliasilge requested a review from jmcphers December 2, 2025 16:20

lionel- reviewed Dec 3, 2025

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jmcphers previously approved these changes Dec 4, 2025

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extensions/positron-r/package.json Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

Update extensions/positron-r/package.json

bab71ef

Co-authored-by: Jonathan <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Julia Silge <[email protected]>

juliasilge dismissed jmcphers’s stale review via bab71ef December 4, 2025 02:49

juliasilge and others added 5 commits December 3, 2025 19:58

Localize the debugger UI launch support context

5c3b7c6

"Ui" and not "UI"

fe33ed1

Update src/vs/workbench/contrib/debug/browser/welcomeView.ts

1e86d7d

Co-authored-by: Lionel Henry <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Julia Silge <[email protected]>

Rework code organization for more straightforward code fences

9152d54

Clear the language context, to set up for next time

54a2564

lionel- approved these changes Dec 4, 2025

View reviewed changes

juliasilge merged commit 2268248 into main Dec 4, 2025
13 checks passed

juliasilge deleted the positron-r-contributes-debugger branch December 4, 2025 15:51

github-actions bot locked and limited conversation to collaborators Dec 4, 2025

Get rid of big "Run and Debug" button for R extension #10769

Get rid of big "Run and Debug" button for R extension #10769

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