RXDK for VS Code

Original Xbox development in VS Code / Cursor — project templates, build, deploy, and native debugging for the open RXDK SDK

Build homebrew for the original Xbox in VS Code or Cursor against RXDK — the open, self-contained, MSVC-free Xbox SDK. Everything you need to write, build, deploy, and debug an Xbox title, without the legacy XDK — on Windows, Linux, or macOS.

Features

• Project templates — Original Xbox Game, Empty, Static Lib, DXT, Controller Input, Font Scroller, Network Server, Video Player, plus multi-project samples (Cube, Music Visualizer).
• Build, deploy & debug with F5 — compiles the .xbe, deploys it to your devkit over XBDM, and attaches the source-level debugger: breakpoints, stepping, locals, watches, and rich value / container visualizers (STL types, enums by name, strings, and drill-in for this and struct/class pointers). Launch in xemu runs the title in the emulator instead.
• Sample browser — browse the full RXDK sample suite in a gallery and open any sample in a new window.
• RXDK sidebar — set the devkit IP, warm-reboot, switch Debug / Release, open the SDK / host-tools / docs folders, launch xbWatson and Xbox Neighborhood, and read the docs.
• Component management — see installed-vs-available versions of the SDK, docs, host tools, and samples, and update any of them (or all) with one click.
• One-click setup — downloads the SDK, host tools, documentation, the Zig toolchain, and the .NET runtime into the RXDK data folder.
• Prebuilt XBE debugging — attach the debugger to an existing .xbe + .pdb, no rebuild required.
• Cross-platform — the same build / deploy / debug pipeline on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Getting started

1. Install the extension and reload.
2. Open the RXDK sidebar (Activity Bar) and run Complete Setup to install the prerequisites (SDK, host tools, docs, Zig, .NET).
3. New Project (or Open Sample) → choose a template and a parent folder.
4. Set your devkit IP in the sidebar (Devkit ▸ Set Xbox IP / Hostname), then press F5 to build, deploy, and debug.

The devkit address comes from the Xbox SDK registry on Windows (HKCU\Software\Microsoft\XboxSDK\XboxName) and from rxdk.defaultConsole in settings.json on macOS / Linux. Full install steps and troubleshooting: docs/INSTALL.md.

Building from source

npm ci
npm run compile
npm run package                        # -> rxdk-vscode-<version>.vsix
code --install-extension rxdk-vscode-*.vsix

Host tools (imagebld, xdvdfs, xbcp, xbox-launch, xboxdbg-bridge, xbwatson) are downloaded per-platform at runtime from RXDK-Tools; nothing is bundled in the VSIX, so no submodule or .NET SDK build step is required. CI builds the .vsix on push via .github/workflows/build-vsix.yml.

Links

• Source: https://github.com/Team-Resurgent/RXDK-VSCode
• Open SDK (RXDK-Libs): https://github.com/Team-Resurgent/RXDK-Libs
• Sample suite: https://github.com/Team-Resurgent/RXDK-Samples
• Community: Discord · Patreon · ko-fi

RXDK is a clean, from-source Xbox SDK — not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. Licensed under GPLv3.