Start code-server with no project directory

[geiseri]

I have a single instance code server, but I like to have multiple projects open. It used to be that if you didn't supply a root directory it would not have any folder open by default. Is there a way to get this back, or make this a flag at startup?

[code-asher]

This is the default still but code-server remembers the last opened directory and stores it in ~/.local/share/code-server/coder.json. It'll fall back to this if nothing else is provided.

There's no way to circumvent this other than remove the entry from coder.json (or delete it entirely) so maybe we should add a flag like --no-default-dir or something more clever than that. Or maybe something like --no-remember to avoid writing the last opened directory so you can still use coder.json to set the default if desired.

[geiseri]

The issue I have with the default folder is the base has 10 projects with typescript, javascript,c++, and java. Needless to say, code-server takes it's sweet time when it starts to parse that and load the respective extensions. A --no-default-dir would be helpful so that when I open a new window I don't have to race that process to open the correct project folder =)

[code-asher]

Makes sense to me! In the meantime I'll throw out a couple workarounds that may or may not work for you (you've likely already considered them, but just in case):

• Create and use a workspace that contains all the projects.
• Manually add the ?folder=/path/to/dir URL parameter when going to code-server to open the right directory (or use bookmarks).
• Kind of a silly one but remove the last visited property from coder.json and make it read-only. code-server will log a warning when trying to write but it can be ignored.

[geiseri]

I tried the first but VS code workspaces get "funny" if you mix languages. I was also a bit unwieldy. The 2nd works pretty well, but for some reason, Google decided that you should not be allowed to open a PWA directly, and need to open it in a browser and then open with the PWA. I am not sure how unique I am. I use code-server from a Chromebook remotely, so I tend to use it as someone would use a local instance. I think its more a limitation of the PWA technology than the code-server product itself.

[code-asher]

Ah that's unfortunate. Fortunately adding this flag should be simple and straightforward.

[geiseri]

I did finally find a reasonable workaround. I used the alefragnani.project-manager extension and set my startup folder to an empty directory. I tried with a workspace for each project and that worked too, but the extension made it a bit easier to manage. I think this is a "reasonable" workaround, so I would be comfortable closing this issue, and just putting a note about that in the faq.