Last tested version is 1.106.2, may become invalid in a future version.

Pros

• As a tab on browser, more convenient. Haven't redundant services and GPU processs, less overhead.

• Bypass Electron's IME issues on Linux Wayland (Electron 33 alpha fixed this).

• Official extension market, not coder/code-server's market.

Cons

• Not officially supported. See this issue.

• Key shortcut conflicts, like Ctrl + W will close the browser tab (PWA mode fixes this).

Guide

Download and extract https://update.code.visualstudio.com/latest/server-linux-x64-web/stable (or server-win32-x64-web and others).

Then use bin/code-server(.bat) or write a custom run.sh:

#!/bin/sh
cd $(dirname $0)
UV_USE_IO_URING=0 exec node out/server-main.js --accept-server-license-terms --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8109 --connection-token=hello

And here's a patch.js to workaround some issues like offline webview, see comments for details:

import fs from "node:fs";
if (!fs.existsSync("out/server-cli.js")) throw new Error("working dir wrong");
const patch = (filePath, replaceList) => {
  const bakPath = filePath + `.bak`;
  if (!fs.existsSync(bakPath)) fs.renameSync(filePath, bakPath);
  let content = fs.readFileSync(bakPath).toString();
  for (const [from, to] of replaceList) {
    const testFn = from instanceof RegExp ? "match" : "includes";
    const replaceFn = from instanceof RegExp ? "replace" : "replaceAll";
    if (!content[testFn](from))
      console.error("patch entry not found", { from, to });
    content = content[replaceFn](from, to);
  }
  fs.writeFileSync(filePath, content);
};
patch("out/vs/code/browser/workbench/workbench.js", [
  // > src/vs/workbench/services/environment/browser/environmentService.ts
  [`"https://{{uuid}}.vscode-cdn.net/{{quality}}/{{commit}}`, `baseUrl+"`], // Replace entry url with local server to allow offline work (for webview)
  // > src/vs/workbench/contrib/extensions/browser/extensions.contribution.ts
  [/(?<="extensions.autoUpdate":\{.+?,default:).+?,/, "false,"], // Set "extensions.autoUpdate" default = false. Because the "User Settings" is store in browser (indexedDB), so if you open a page in a fresh incognito window, the update progress will start unexpectedly
]);
patch("out/vs/workbench/contrib/webview/browser/pre/index.html", [
  // > src/vs/workbench/contrib/webview/browser/pre/index.html
  [/\'sha256.+?\'/, "'unsafe-inline'"], // Modify CSP (for webview)
  [/\.padStart\(52.+?\)/, "&&location.hostname"], // Bypass hostname vertify (for webview)
]);
const spdlogDir = "node_modules/@vscode/spdlog";
fs.rmSync(spdlogDir + "/build", { recursive: true, force: true });
fs.writeFileSync(spdlogDir + "/package.json", '{"version":"99.0.0"}\n'); // the overwrite here can deal with the type:"module" in future
const spdlogIndexJs = () => {
  const fs = require("node:fs");
  const path = require("node:path");
  function Logger(name, filepath) {
    fs.mkdirSync(path.dirname(filepath), { recursive: true });
    const fd = fs.openSync(filepath, "a");
    const write = (v) =>
      fs.write(fd, "[" + Date.now() + "] " + v.trimEnd() + "\n", () => {});
    this.debug = this.info = this.warn = write;
    this.error = this.critical = this.trace = write;
    this.getLevel = () => 2;
    this.setLevel = this.setPattern = this.clearFormatters = () => {};
    this.flush = () => fs.fsync(fd, () => {});
    this.drop = () => fs.close(fd);
  }
  const create = (name, filepath, maxSize, maxFiles) =>
    new Promise((resolve) => resolve(new Logger(name, filepath)));
  exports.createAsyncRotatingLogger = exports.createRotatingLogger = create;
  exports.setLevel = exports.setFlushOn = () => {};
  exports.version = 11100;
};
fs.writeFileSync(spdlogDir + "/index.js", `(${spdlogIndexJs.toString()})()`);
// node patch.js; rm -rf extensions/markdown-language-features extensions/mermaid-chat-features node_modules/@xterm/addon-ligatures node_modules/@vscode/vsce-sign node_modules/vsda node_modules/vscode-regexp-languagedetection node_modules/@vscode/vscode-languagedetection ~/.vscode-server/data/Cached* ~/.vscode-server/extensions/redhat.java-*/jre/ ~/.vscode-server/extensions/ms-python.python-*/pythonFiles/lib/python/debugpy/_vendored/pydevd/pydevd_attach_to_process/ ~/.vscode-server/extensions/ms-python.python-*/out/client/extension.js.map*

// todo:
// ./node_modules/0_vscode-oniguruma
// ./node_modules/0_vscode-textmate
// ./node_modules/@vscode/tree-sitter-wasm
// ./out/vs/workbench/workbench.web.main.internal.js

• There's a bug that caused UI freezed when entering debug after 1.65. (UPDATED) Patch merged into mainline.

• Can not install extensions after Node.js 21. (UPDATED) Patch merged into mainline.

• NAN addons like node-spdlog and node-pty may needs recompiling, you can use a faked spdlog in above patch.js, and daniel-brenot's node-pty fork. (UPDATED) Patch merged into mainline in node-pty with NAPI.