Microsoft/vscode

Support naming settings.json as settings.jsonc (and others)

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#269824 opened on Oct 4, 2025

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 (13 comments) (5 reactions) (1 assignee)TypeScript (74,848 stars) (10,221 forks)batch import
feature-requesthelp wantedsettings-editor

Description

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

  • VS Code Version: 1.104.2
  • OS Version: Linux

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Create .vscode/settings.json, .vscode/extensions.json, etc.
  2. Put a comment into that "JSON", as allowed by https://jsonc.org, used implicitly by VSC
  3. Use any other of about a billion existing tool which assumes that *.json are https://www.json.org and not https://jsonc.org
  4. See that tool fail, e.g. https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks/issues/1196

This was already reported in https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/79744 over 6+ years ago.

Would a PR to add support for this be welcome?

Contributor guide

Tech stack
typescriptnodejs
Domain
developer experiencetooling
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
half day
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
JSONC formatVS Code file association configurationTypeScript development
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
60
Research direction
Investigate the current file association handling in VS Code, specifically how settings.json is treated. Review the previous issue #79744 and any related comments. Examine the node jsonc parser usage to understand existing JSONC support. Consider proposing a change to allow .jsonc extension for settings files, updating file associations and documentation.