StarCraft 2 Map Launcher

Launch your StarCraft II map directly from VS Code — no alt-tabbing required.

Features

Status bar launch button

A $(run) SC2: Launch Map button sits in the status bar at all times. One click launches your map.

Run & Debug integration

The extension registers itself as a debug configuration provider. Open the Run and Debug panel and SC2: Launch Map appears in the dropdown — no launch.json needed.

Press F5 or click the green play button to launch.

Advanced launch options via launch.json

For full control, add an SC2 configuration to your .vscode/launch.json. The extension ships two ready-made templates — open the Run and Debug panel, click Add Configuration, choose SC2 Launcher, and both are written into your launch.json at once.

SC2: Launch Map

Launches a map directly. Suitable for map development.

{
  "name": "SC2: Launch Map",
  "type": "sc2",
  "request": "launch",
  "triggerDebug": true,
  "speed": 4,
  "showErrors": true,
  "testConfig": "SwarmTest.SC2TestConfig"
}

SC2: Launch Mod

Loads a .SC2Mod (or .SC2Components folder) against a test map. Suitable for mod development — edit your data files while SC2 is running, then restart the map in-game without relaunching.

{
  "name": "SC2: Launch Mod",
  "type": "sc2",
  "request": "launch",
  "map": "C:\\path\\to\\MyTestMap.SC2Map",
  "testMod": "Mods\\MyMod.SC2Mod;ComponentList.SC2Components",
  "triggerDebug": false,
  "showErrors": false
}

• map — the .SC2Map used as the host for your mod. Keep a barebones test map with a start location and some resources. Leave empty to fall back to sc2.mapPath or workspace auto-detection.
• testMod — path to your .SC2Mod or unpacked .SC2Components folder, passed as -testmod. Relative paths are resolved from the SC2 installation root (e.g. Mods\MyMod.SC2Mod). For unpacked component folders append ;ComponentList.SC2Components (e.g. Mods\MyMod.SC2Mod;ComponentList.SC2Components).

Tip: With component folders you can edit data files while the game is running, save, then restart the map in-game (F10 → d → r on English clients) for a much faster iteration loop.

Running SC2 behavior

If StarCraft II is already running when you trigger a launch, the extension kills the existing process and relaunches the map.

By default, sc2.warnIfRunning is enabled, so the extension shows a confirmation dialog before killing a running SC2 instance. Disable this setting if you want launches to skip the prompt and relaunch immediately.

Error and warning detection

Every time you launch, the extension watches the SC2 GameLogs folder for new files written by this specific launch. Previous files from older launches are snapshotted and ignored.

Script compile errors (ScriptError.txt)

If your Galaxy scripts fail to compile, SC2 writes a YYYY-MM-DD HH.MM.SS ScriptError.txt file to GameLogs.

The extension parses it and posts structured diagnostics to the Problems panel. When the error includes a file and line number, VS Code jumps to that exact location in your .galaxy file and highlights the line. The diagnostic message also includes the offending code snippet when SC2 reports it:

Error parsing function line, possibly invalid variable name/function call or missing } at end of function.
  Code: Spawn_Init();dsa

If no file/line is available (e.g. Script load failed: Function not found), the raw message is posted against the map path.

Runtime data warnings (Alerts.txt)

After a successful compile, SC2 may write a YYYY-MM-DD HH.MM.SS Alerts.txt to GameLogs with runtime data warnings, such as:

Too many CAbilStop abilities for 'LurkerMPBurrowed'.
Too many CAbilAttack abilities for 'Cyclone'.

These are posted as warnings (yellow) in the Problems panel. The extension extracts the entity name from each message and searches your workspace files to find where that entity is defined, then points the diagnostic at that location. XML files take priority over other file types — if Cyclone appears in an .xml data file, the warning points there rather than to a .txt list. If no workspace file contains the entity name, the warning falls back to the map path.

Clearing errors on edit

Diagnostics are cleared automatically when you start editing the line they point to — fixing the offending line removes its squiggle and Problems entry immediately without needing to relaunch. All diagnostics are also cleared at the start of every new launch.

SC2 output channel

The SC2 output channel (View → Output → SC2) is opened on every launch and logs watcher activity:

[SC2 Watcher] Watching: C:\Users\…\GameLogs (5 pre-existing files ignored)
[SC2 Watcher] New file detected: 2026-04-11 14.37.09 Alerts.txt
[SC2 Watcher] Searching 312 workspace files for 15 entity names...
[SC2 Watcher] Located 12/15 entities in workspace files.
[SC2 Watcher] Found 80 alerts.

Auto-detects map path

The extension scans your workspace for the first folder ending in .SC2Map and uses it as the map path. No configuration needed for standard project layouts.

Setup

1. Open Settings (Ctrl+,) and search for SC2.
2. Set SC2: Install Dir to your StarCraft II root folder.

Requirements

• Windows
• StarCraft II installed
• VS Code >= 1.80