Set global $PATH environment variable in VS Code

If you only need the $PATH to be set in the integrated terminal, you can use VS Code's terminal.integrated.env.<platform> variable (added in version 1.15). Press Cmd+Shift+P (or Ctrl+Shift+P) and search for "Preferences: Open Settings (JSON)". Then add the following entry to the settings file:

"terminal.integrated.env.osx": {
  "PATH": "...:/usr/bin:/bin:..."
}

(Replace .osx with .linux or .windows as needed.)

To see your system's $PATH, type echo "$PATH" in Terminal.app, and copy and paste it into the settings snippet above.

As for having the $PATH available everwhere in VS Code, so that it will be used by extensions that call binaries, the only workaround I've found so far is this:

1. Configure your shell (bash by default) to have the $PATH you want. For example, my ~/.bash_profile has the following line:

   PATH="$PATH:$HOME/bin"
   

2. In VS Code, press ⇧⌘P and type install 'code' command if you haven't done so before.

3. Quit VS Code.

4. Launch VS Code not by clicking the icon in the dock or in Launchpad, but by opening Terminal.app and typing code. Your newly set path will be active in VS Code until you quit it.

5. If VS Code restarts, for example due to an upgrade, the $PATH will reset to the system default. In that case, quit VS Code and re-launch it by typing code.

I am using vscode on macos for C/C++ development in conjunction with CMake.

The vscode extension CMake Tools allows to manipulate environment variables via the configuration properties cmake.configureEnvironment, cmake.buildEnvironment and cmake.environment (acting respectively on the CMake configuration phase, the build phase and both - see docs).

Then you can extend your system PATH with custom paths by adding the following snippet to your user or project settings.json:

"cmake.environment": {
    "PATH": "~/.myTool/bin:${env:PATH}"
},

Visual Studio Code is the problem.

No matter how you set your PATH variable in the shell, there are cases where Visual Studio Code will not inherit your PATH setting. If you're using an application launcher like LaunchBar to start Visual Studio Code, your PATH variable will not be inherited.

Here is a system-wide fix:

In the /etc/paths.d directory, create a file with your Unix username. In that file, place the additional paths that Visual Studio Code needs to work. In my case, this is the contents of my /etc/paths.d file:

/usr/ucb /opt/local/bin /opt/local/sbin ~/go/bin

Note: Your /etc/paths.d file will be processed system-wide. Since most systems are single-user, this shouldn't be a problem for most developers.

Since this is the top Google search result for variants of "VS Code path", I will add my answer here.

I'm running Linux and my problem was that VS Code couldn't find some executable needed to build my project. I was running VS Code from the quick launcher (ALT+F2), and not from a Terminal. I tried modifying the PATH variable in many different places, but I couldn't seem to get it right.

In the end, placing the right PATH inside of ~/.zshenv is what worked. It's because .zshenv is the only file that gets sourced for non-interactive shell command execution like from inside of VS Code (more detailed explanation here https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/71253/what-should-shouldnt-go-in-zshenv-zshrc-zlogin-zprofile-zlogout )

In:

> Preferences: Open Settings (JSON)

add to the JSON file:

"terminal.integrated.env.windows": {
    "PATH": "${env:PATH}"
},

In order to check if it works execute in your VS Code Terminal:

# For PowerShell
echo $env:PATH
# For bash
echo "$PATH"