How to open vscode:// links when VS Code is installed in a toolbox container e.g. for plugin login/authentication

Ask Fedora
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1

I know helix (and hopefully soon lapce) are the ultimate editing experience, but for anyone still on vs code, some plugins like DeepSeek/Qwen/Copilot/Kimi/Qodo fka Codium require authentication where you have to login via a web browser.

If you are a Silverblue user who installed vs code inside of a toolbx container, what is the best way to actually get the vscode[-insiders]:// URI to open properly? Firefox and Epiphany from Flatpak (still waiting on Dev edition) did not retrieve the launcher link correctly, but Google Chrome for some reason did, though it did not actually launch vscode and I had to open developer console to copy the vscode:// link by hand.

Then I tried passing the login URL and the vscode-insiders:// url to the xdg-open command and the code[-insiders] command both inside and outside of the container, none of which worked.

The only thing that has worked so far is:

  1. In VS Code: CTRL+SHIFT+P
  2. Select "Simple Browser: Show
  3. Paste the vscode[-insiders]:// URI

Is there a better way that doesn’t require all the manual copy/pasting?

3

This will be an issue of apps registering themselves as opening links.

I suppose it is similar to file mimetype associations, but different.

I think on KDE you can edit the links opened by apps? But not sure.

Do you use portals in Firefox? about:config there you can enable portals for different parts. Then a system dialog should open, to select the app to open the link. VSCode could show there and you may be able to set it as default.

Btw, the Firefox Flatpak has highly reduced sandboxing, because Firefox is not yet really suited to be ran inside such a container.

Also, there is a dev edition Flatpak.

But if you want to avoid using an RPM, I would recommend the tarball.

4

You likely need to export the VS Code desktop file and edit it to add tooblox run -c ... in from of the Exec line. Then you should be able to edit the mapping for vscode:// links in the settings and set it to your VS Code desktop entry.