Nifty Shell Format

Format shell scripts (bash, sh, zsh, bats) with shfmt built in: no binary to install, reads .editorconfig, and shows syntax errors.

Maintained. No sign-in. No telemetry. Works in VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VSCodium and other editors that use Open VSX.

Features

A deploy script formatted with the project's .editorconfig: 4 spaces and indented case branches

A Bash-only array flagged in a #!/bin/sh script

Format Document for shell scripts. Bash, POSIX sh, zsh, mksh and Bats files are formatted by shfmt, the formatter the shell community standardised on.
Nothing to install. shfmt is built in as WebAssembly, so there's no Go binary to download, no PATH to fix and no "shfmt not found". It behaves the same on Windows, macOS, Linux, in WSL and in remote containers.
Your style, not ours. Indentation follows the editor (or .editorconfig), and every shfmt option is a setting: &&/| at the start of lines, indented case branches, > file spacing, kept alignment, braces on the next line, simplify.
Reads .editorconfig the way the shfmt command does, including shell_variant, switch_case_indent and binary_next_line, so your editor and your CI's shfmt -d agree.
The right dialect automatically. #!/bin/sh scripts are parsed as POSIX (so Bash-only syntax is flagged), #!/usr/bin/env zsh as zsh, .bats files as Bats.
Syntax errors as you type, with the exact line and column, in the Problems panel.
Set as the default formatter for shell scripts, so format on save works right away.

Command	What it does
`Nifty Shell Format: Format Shell Script`	Format the current script (same as Format Document)
`Nifty Shell Format: Check Shell Syntax`	Check the current script for syntax errors

Setting	Default	shfmt flag	What it does
`nifty.shell-format.indent`	`-1`	`-i`	Spaces per level, `0` for tabs, `-1` to follow the editor
`nifty.shell-format.variant`	`auto`	`-ln`	`bash`, `posix`, `mksh`, `bats` or `zsh`
`nifty.shell-format.binaryNextLine`	`false`	`-bn`	`&&`, `\\|\\|` and `\\|` start the next line
`nifty.shell-format.switchCaseIndent`	`false`	`-ci`	Indent `case` branches
`nifty.shell-format.spaceRedirects`	`false`	`-sr`	`> file` instead of `>file`
`nifty.shell-format.keepPadding`	`false`	`-kp`	Keep alignment padding
`nifty.shell-format.functionNextLine`	`false`	`-fn`	Function braces on the next line
`nifty.shell-format.simplify`	`false`	`-s`	Simplify where possible
`nifty.shell-format.useEditorconfig`	`true`		Read options from `.editorconfig`
`nifty.shell-format.validate`	`true`		Show syntax errors while you type

VS Code: search for "Nifty Shell Format" in the Extensions view, or install from the Visual Studio Marketplace.
Cursor, Windsurf, VSCodium, Kiro, Antigravity: install from Open VSX.

This extension collects no telemetry and needs no account.

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