CodeAlign

Universal text alignment for VS Code - variables, operators, comments, tables and more, in any language or file format.

Features

Installation

Ctrl+Shift+X → search CodeAlign → Install.

Usage

• With selection: select lines → Ctrl+Alt+A (auto-detect) or right-click → CodeAlign submenu.
• Without selection: Ctrl+Alt+A aligns the entire file.
• Folder: right-click a folder in the Explorer → Align All Files in Folder.
• Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P → type CodeAlign to see all commands.

Commands

| Command | Description |
| ---|---|
| **Align Smart** | Auto-detect best separator and align |
| **Align by…** | QuickPick from your `separators` list |
| **Align by Custom Separator** | Any separator string |
| **Align by Regex** | Any regex pattern as the alignment target |
| **Align Changed Lines (Git Diff)** | Only align groups containing git-modified lines |
| **Sort & Align** | Sort lines then align (6 sort modes) |
| **Format as Table** | Convert delimited text to a Markdown table |
| **Align to Column** | Pad to a fixed column number |
| **Align Inline Comments** | Align `//`, `#`, `--`, `;` to the same column |
| **Preview Alignment** | Ghost text preview - apply or cancel |
| **Unalign** | Collapse aligned spaces back to minimum |
| **Switch Profile** | QuickPick between named config profiles |
| **Toggle Auto-Align** | Enable / disable background alignment |
| **Align All Files in Folder** | Align all files in a folder recursively |

Keyboard Shortcuts

Rebind anything via Ctrl+K Ctrl+S → search CodeAlign.

Configuration

File > Preferences > Settings → search CodeAlign, or edit settings.json directly.

General

Available separators (multi-char must come before single-char):

:=  =>  ->  <-  !=  ==  =  :  |  ,

Auto-align

Auto-align uses codealign.separators - no separate list needed.

Profiles & language auto-detection

Define named presets in codealign.profiles. Each profile overrides separators, minimumSpacesBefore, and minimumSpacesAfter.

Switch manually with Switch Profile, or automatically by language using codealign.languageProfiles:

"codealign.profiles": {
  "Python": { "separators": ["=", ":"], "minimumSpacesBefore": 1 },
  "YAML":   { "separators": [":"],      "minimumSpacesBefore": 0 },
  "Tables": { "separators": ["|", ","] }
},
"codealign.languageProfiles": {
  "python": "Python",
  "yaml":   "YAML"
}

The active profile is shown in the status bar. languageProfiles only applies when no profile is manually set.

Complete settings.json example

{
  // -- Spacing
  "codealign.minimumSpacesBefore": 1,
  "codealign.minimumSpacesAfter":  1,

  // -- Separators (single source of truth for all alignment operations)
  "codealign.separators":              ["=>", "=", ":"],
  "codealign.commentSeparators":       ["//", "#", "--", ";"],
  "codealign.commentMinSpaces":        2,
  "codealign.separatorOccurrence":     1,
  "codealign.smartDetectionThreshold": 0.5,

  // -- Paste & exclusions
  "codealign.pasteAlign.enabled":  true,
  "codealign.excludedLanguages":   [],

  // -- Auto-align (uses codealign.separators)
  "codealign.autoAlign.enabled":    true,
  "codealign.autoAlign.trigger":    "onSave",
  "codealign.autoAlign.debounceMs": 400,

  // -- UI
  "codealign.smartAlign.multiPass":     false,
  "codealign.livePreview.enabled":      false,
  "codealign.columnIndicator.enabled":  true,

  // -- Profiles 
  "codealign.activeProfile": "",
  "codealign.profiles": {
    "Python":   { "separators": ["=", ":"], "minimumSpacesBefore": 1, "minimumSpacesAfter": 1 },
    "YAML":     { "separators": [":"],      "minimumSpacesBefore": 0, "minimumSpacesAfter": 1 },
    "Markdown": { "separators": ["|", ","], "minimumSpacesBefore": 1, "minimumSpacesAfter": 1 },
    "Go":       { "separators": [":=", "="] }
  },

  // -- Language auto-profile 
  "codealign.languageProfiles": {
    "python":   "Python",
    "yaml":     "YAML",
    "go":       "Go",
    "markdown": "Markdown"
  }
}

Examples

Variable assignments

// Before
const name = "John";
const age = 30;
const city = "New York";

// After - Align Smart (=)
const name = "John";
const age  = 30;
const city = "New York";

YAML / config

# Before
host: localhost
port: 5432
database: mydb

# After - Align by :
host     : localhost
port     : 5432
database : mydb

Sort & Align

// Before (selected, Sort A→Z + align)
const zebra = 3;
const apple = 1;
const mango = 2;

// After
const apple = 1;
const mango = 2;
const zebra = 3;

Format as Table

// Before (CSV or pipe-separated, 2+ lines selected)
Name, Age, City
Alice, 30, Paris
Bob, 25, London

// After - Format as Table
| Name  | Age | City   |
| ----- | --- | ------ |
| Alice | 30  | Paris  |
| Bob   | 25  | London |

Align by Regex

-- Pattern: \s+AS\s+
SELECT user_id AS id, email_address AS email, created_at AS created
-- becomes:
SELECT user_id       AS id,
       email_address AS email,
       created_at    AS created

Git-diff aware

Only the group containing your modified lines gets aligned. Code you didn't touch is not reformatted - no noisy diffs.

Align to Column

# Target column: 40
x = 1               # short var
very_long_name = 2  # long var

# After - both separators at column 40
x              = 1               # short var
very_long_name = 2               # long var

Inline comments

# Before
name = "John"  # user name
age = 30  # age
city = "NYC"  # location

# After - Align Inline Comments
name = "John"  # user name
age  = 30      # age
city = "NYC"   # location

Unalign

Collapses aligned spaces back to the configured minimum - useful before re-aligning with a different separator or to keep diffs clean.

Alignment rules

• Groups: consecutive lines, same indentation, same separator. Blank lines and indent changes are boundaries. Minimum 2 lines to align.
• Strings: separators inside '...' or "..." are ignored.
• Comments: separators inside comment tails are ignored.
• Parentheses: = inside (...) is ignored (for-loops, default params).
• Compound operators: +=, -=, *=, /=, %=, &=, |=, ^=, ~=, ??= are never broken.
• Mixed indent: tabs and spaces are normalised using the editor's tabSize for grouping; actual characters are preserved.

Supported languages

Works on any file VS Code can open as text. Tested with Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Rust, Go, C, C++, Java, Lua, PHP, Ruby, Swift, Kotlin, Bash, PowerShell, SQL, HTML, CSS, SCSS, JSON, YAML, TOML, XML, Markdown, Dockerfile, .env, and plain text.

Contributing

Bug reports and feature requests welcome - github.com/r-seize/CodeAlign/issues. Include the text you were aligning and the result you expected.