VS code extension dependencies not being deployed when debugging?

Question

Running Visual Studio Code 1.52.1.

I created a simple VS Code extension as described in this tutorial. Then I added a dependency as shown below. The problem is that this dependency does not seem to get deployed when debugging.

---

package.json

"dependencies": {
    "@types/markdown-table": "^2.0.0"
}

And the actual import looks like this:

import * as table from 'markdown-table'

Then I hit F5 just as described in the linked tutorial. When my registered command is run, I get the following error message:

Activating extension 'undefined_publisher.hello-world' failed: Cannot find module 'markdown-table'

For completeness, here is the generated tsconfig.json:

{
    "compilerOptions": {
        "module": "commonjs",
        "target": "es6",
        "outDir": "out",
        "lib": [
            "es6"
        ],
        "sourceMap": true,
        "rootDir": "src",
        "strict": true
    },
    "exclude": [
        "node_modules",
        ".vscode-test"
    ]
}

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65852210/vs-code-extension-dependencies-not-being-deployed-when-debugging

Answer 1

Should be able to add a preLaunchTask.

For Example in .vscode/launch.json:

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Run Extension",
      "type": "extensionHost",
      "request": "launch",
      "runtimeExecutable": "${execPath}",
      "args": ["--extensionDevelopmentPath=${workspaceFolder}"],
      "preLaunchTask": "npm: build"
    }
  ]
}