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.

Safety Measures

1. It cannot break your code. Every format re-parses its own output and compares its significant token stream against the input's, with a second check for the comments. Identical tokens mean an identical parse tree. 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.

maxdop formats whole files. It registers no range formatter on purpose: asking a formatter for a range and getting the whole document back is how Format Selection quietly reformats work outside the selection.

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,
  "recaseBuiltInFunctions": true,
  "alwaysBreakWhere": false,
  "parserVersion": "latest",
  "exclude": ["db/generated/**", "*.gen.sql"]
}

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.

parserVersion pins the grammar. It defaults to the newest one ScriptDom ships; set it to "2019" and a 2019-target codebase is never silently reformatted under newer rules. The full option list is in the project README.

The same formatter runs in your pipeline

The binary inside this extension is the one you can put in CI. maxdop --check src/ exits nonzero if anything would change, which is what turns a shared style into an enforced one — an editor formatter alone can only ask nicely.

maxdop --check src/                                   # fail the build if anything would change
git diff --name-only --diff-filter=ACM -z | maxdop --check --files-from -   # or only what changed

Download it from releases. It is one static executable with no .NET runtime, for Windows, macOS, Linux and Alpine, x64 and arm64.

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: because maxdop ships no range formatter, Format Selection falls through to mssql's, whichever default you pick.