Consider modernizing the scaffolding approach — Yeoman may be outdated

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
25/100
Issue type
Documentation
Clarity
Needs clarification
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
vscode
Domain
developer-experience, documentation

Research direction

Start with the linked VS Code first-extension documentation and review where Yeoman is used in the current development instructions. The issue proposes several possible alternatives but does not select one or identify specific files. Done would require agreeing on a replacement approach and updating the relevant documentation accordingly.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

feature-request

I noticed that the current development instruction of vscode extension still heavily relies on Yeoman, which, while reliable in its time, has become somewhat outdated and less commonly used in modern development environments. https://code.visualstudio.com/api/get-started/your-first-extension. With the evolution of tooling chain and popular copilot or LLM-based code generation out there, these might be more intuitive approaches available today.

In particular, it could consider exploring:

  • LLM-based code generation (e.g., copilot，GPT-driven CLI assistants): These tools can offer contextual, prompt-driven scaffolding based on natural language, and are becoming increasingly popular in modern developer workflows.

  • Custom CLI tools: Many modern frameworks have moved toward lightweight, purpose-built CLI generators with built-in UX and fewer dependencies. A simple git clone command also works well (not using yo).

  • Interactive UI-based templates: For extensions or project scaffolds, an interactive UI could further improve discoverability and ease of use inside VS Code.

This isn't an urgent issue, but perhaps worth considering for long-term modernization and improving developer experience. I'd be happy to brainstorm further or prototype an example if helpful 🙂 Yeoman is still cool and awesome.

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