Rmd Notebooks for VS Code

Open .Rmd and .qmd files as runnable R notebooks in VS Code while keeping the source file on disk in fenced-source form.

For many R users, the default workflow has long been R Markdown in RStudio: write code in chunks, run them inline, and inspect plots and tables right where they were produced. Quarto (.qmd) keeps that same chunk-oriented workflow while broadening the document model.

In VS Code, that experience has usually been weaker. You can edit .Rmd and .qmd as text, and you can send code to an R terminal, but you do not normally get a proper inline notebook workflow with rendered outputs living next to the code.

This extension closes most of that gap. It opens .Rmd and .qmd files as runnable R notebooks in VS Code, keeps the underlying source on disk in fenced-source form, and lets you switch back to the raw file whenever you want.

Demo

Status

This project is working and publishable as a preview extension.

Current capabilities:

• opens .Rmd and .qmd as notebooks
• runs R code cells in a persistent per-document R session
• renders inline stdout, stderr, HTML, and static plots
• restores cached outputs on reopen
• marks outputs stale after code edits
• supports chunk-header editing from notebook mode
• lets you switch between notebook view and raw source view

Current limits:

• R only
• static image plots only
• no htmlwidgets
• only a small subset of knitr options is enforced today: eval=FALSE, include=FALSE, results='hide'
• interactive chunks fall back to an R terminal instead of inline stdin dialogs

Commands

• Rmd Notebooks: Run Current Chunk
• Rmd Notebooks: Run All Chunks
• Rmd Notebooks: Clear Current Output
• Rmd Notebooks: Clear All Outputs
• Rmd Notebooks: Restart R Session
• Rmd Notebooks: Run Current Chunk in R Terminal
• Rmd Notebooks: Show Output Panel
• Rmd Notebooks: Edit Chunk Header
• Rmd Notebooks: Toggle Notebook / Raw Source View

The notebook toolbar also exposes Restart R Session and View Source.

If inline execution appears to stall because a chunk wants interactive input, the extension can prompt to run that chunk in an integrated R terminal instead. This is controlled by rmdNotebooks.execution.interactiveFallbackBehavior and rmdNotebooks.execution.interactiveFallbackTimeoutMs.

Development

npm install
npm run compile
npm test

npm test is the full local verification path, including the real VS Code extension-host suite. GitHub Actions stays lighter and only runs the unit tests plus packaging checks.

Manual visual sessions:

npm run dev:visual
npm run dev:visual:rmd
npm run dev:example
npm run dev:example:rmd

CI/CD

• GitHub Actions runs the lightweight repository checks on pushes and pull requests.
• GitHub Actions also handles the release path: it packages the extension as a .vsix, attaches it to GitHub releases, and publishes release tags to the VS Code Marketplace.
• The full macOS extension-host test flow is kept as a local verification step via npm test.

Example notebooks

• test/manual-workspace/example.qmd
• test/manual-workspace/example.rmd

License

MIT