maxdop for VS Code

Max Degree of Prettiness for your T-SQL.

Formats T-SQL with maxdop — an opinionated formatter built on Microsoft's own parser (Microsoft.SqlServer.TransactSql.ScriptDom), so it handles the things other SQL formatters choke on: stored procedures, multi-batch scripts, GO, non-; delimiters, and 2000-era legacy syntax.

Two invariants that are the whole point

1. It cannot break your code. Every format re-parses its own output and compares it against the input. On any mismatch you get your original text back, untouched.
2. It never destroys a file. Constructs the formatter doesn't handle are emitted verbatim. A file that fails to parse is left exactly as it was, with the reason in the maxdop output channel.

Use

Format a .sql file with Format Document, or turn on editor.formatOnSave. To make maxdop the default for SQL when other formatters are installed:

"[sql]": {
  "editor.defaultFormatter": "pbrooks.maxdop",
  "editor.formatOnSave": true
}

The CLI is bundled — there is nothing to install separately, and nothing is downloaded on first activation.

Using this alongside the mssql extension

They are built to sit side by side. This extension contributes a document formatter and nothing else — no language server, no connection handling, no IntelliSense — so mssql keeps everything it does today and only formatting changes hands.

Because both register a formatter for SQL, VS Code needs to know which one Format Document should reach. Installing this extension makes it the default for [sql], and an editor.defaultFormatter you set yourself always wins over that — so to hand formatting back to mssql, set it explicitly:

"[sql]": { "editor.defaultFormatter": "ms-mssql.mssql" }

Either way, maxdop: Format Document in the Command Palette always formats with maxdop, so you can keep mssql on format-on-save and still reach for this one deliberately (it takes a keybinding).

Selections are the one thing to know about: maxdop deliberately ships no range formatter, so Format Selection falls through to mssql's, whichever default you pick.

Configuration lives in your repo, not your editor

There is exactly one extension setting, maxdop.path, for pointing at a different binary.

Everything about how code is formatted goes in a .maxdop.json file at your repo root, so the whole team formats identically whether they use VS Code, the CLI, or CI:

{
  "maxWidth": 100,
  "indentSize": 4,
  "keywordCase": "upper",
  "leadingCommas": false,
  "alwaysBreakWhere": false,
  "parserVersion": 2019
}

The nearest .maxdop.json at or above the file being formatted wins. editor.tabSize and friends are deliberately ignored — a file should not format differently because of who opened it.

Format Selection is not supported, on purpose

maxdop formats whole files. Asking a formatter for a range and getting the whole document back is how "Format Selection" quietly reformats work outside the selection, so this extension registers no range formatter rather than pretending.