Bracket Commands VS Code Extension

This Visual Studio Code extension adds a set of commands to make working with bracket pairs easier. You can quickly wrap selections in your favorite bracket types, cycle through bracket pairs, and remove the nearest pair without disturbing nested structures.

Features

Add brackets

The extension contributes four commands that wrap the current selection (or multiple selections) in the chosen bracket type:

Command	Description
`Bracket Commands: Add Parentheses`	Wraps selections in `()`
`Bracket Commands: Add Square Brackets`	Wraps selections in `[]`
`Bracket Commands: Add Curly Braces`	Wraps selections in `{}`
`Bracket Commands: Add Angle Brackets`	Wraps selections in `<>`
`Bracket Commands: Add Any Bracket`	Prompts for any bracket pair (choose from existing or custom)

You can bind these commands to any key of your choosing via Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts. When invoked, each selection is replaced with the same text surrounded by the appropriate open and close character.

Cycle bracket types

Bracket Commands: Cycle Bracket Type identifies the nearest bracket pair surrounding the cursor and replaces it with the next pair in the configured sequence. For example, if your configured pairs are (), [], {} and <> (the default), running the command while inside a set of parentheses will convert them to square brackets. Run it again to cycle to curly braces, and so on.

Remove brackets

Five commands let you remove bracket pairs:

Bracket Commands: Remove Parentheses
Bracket Commands: Remove Square Brackets
Bracket Commands: Remove Curly Braces
Bracket Commands: Remove Angle Brackets
Bracket Commands: Remove Nearest Bracket Pair

Add any bracket pair

Bracket Commands: Add Any Bracket displays a pick list of your configured bracket pairs. Choose one to wrap the current selection or pick Custom. to enter your own two-character pair. This allows you to quickly insert less common pairs without changing the configuration.

Each command searches to the left and right of the cursor for the nearest matching bracket pair. Only brackets of the requested type are considered except for the nearest command, which will remove whichever pair is closest. Nested pairs of other types are ignored. For example, if your text contains { [ <cursor> ] } and you execute Remove Curly Braces, the command will ignore the square brackets and remove the surrounding curly braces instead.

Extension settings

You can control which bracket types are cycled or removed when using Cycle Bracket Type or Remove Nearest Bracket Pair via the bracketCommands.pairs setting. Set this to an array of two-character strings in your settings.json. The default value is:

"bracketCommands.pairs": ["()", "[]", "{}", "<>"]

The order of the entries determines the cycling sequence.

Requirements

None.

Packaging and publishing

Run npm install to install dependencies.
Compile the TypeScript using npm run compile.
Package the extension with npx vsce package.
Publish with npx vsce publish after confirming the publisher and version.

The files included in the VSIX are controlled by .vscodeignore.

License

This project is released under the MIT License.

Development notes

The core functionality is implemented in src/extension.ts. Commands are registered using vscode.commands.registerTextEditorCommand, which provides direct access to the active editor and an edit builder. According to VS Code API guidelines, you make edits by invoking TextEditor.edit with a callback that receives an editBuilder. Inside the callback, the extension replaces selections with bracketed versions or deletes the identified brackets.

The scanning algorithm for removing and cycling brackets searches left and right from the cursor for the nearest matching open and close characters while respecting nesting of the same bracket type. Other bracket types are skipped so that commands for specific types only operate on the requested pair.

Bracket Commands

Sammy