↓Skip to main content

Snippets in VS Code

·168 words·1 min

VS Code snippets is an easy way to create a template for recurring code blocks or front matter for certain files. We will look at a small example here for a Zettelkasten header.

Here, we have a snippet that will be triggered by “—” followed by Ctrl + Space. Intellisense will also pick it up and suggest the same as well.

  • Name of the snippet: We have named it Test
  • Prefix: The trigger that would invoke the snippet. “—”
  • Body: The conent to be added.
  • Description: A small description of what the snippet is for.
"FrontMatter": {
    "prefix": "---",
    "body": [
        "---",
        "title: $1",
        "date: \"$CURRENT_YEAR-$CURRENT_MONTH-$CURRENT_DATE\"",
        "type: ${2|Daily,Literature,Permanent,Index|}",
        "description: $3",
        "tags: [$4]",
        "---"
    ],
    "description": "FrontMatter"
    }

Inside the body, we have a lot of control.

  • Parameters defined by $1, $2, etc, that can be cycled through quickly using tab.
  • Date or time that can be auto populated.
  • Set a list of values that can be quickly selected and restricted.

A small gif showing the snippet in action.

VS Code snippets