VS Code Extension

CMake

Free

CMake Language Support

CMake Language Support implements common code editor features for CMake in Visual Studio Code.

Install from Marketplace Playground

↓

1,700,000+

Installs

☆

4.8

Rating

Core capabilities

Features

🎨

Syntax Highlighting

⚡

Auto Completion

ℹ️

Quick Info

✍️

Signature Help

🚨

Syntax Errors / Warnings

🧹

Format Document

🧩

Format Selection

🏷️

Rename Symbol

💬

Comment Line / Block

🧭

Document Symbols

🔦

Document Highlights

🗂️

Folding Ranges

📍

Go to Definition

🔗

Go to References

🔎

Find All References

🧱

Brace Completion

🧲

Brace Matching

⭕

Brace Surrounding

↪️

Smart Indentation

Installation

The extension needs .NET to power language features. Choose the setup method that suits your machine.

On first run, the extension Microsoft's .NET Install Tool for Extension Authors will install the runtime automatically.

If setup fails on your machine, follow the manual steps.

Configuration

Format and language-server options

Format options

Select an option to apply it in the preview.

Space after command name i Add a space before the opening parenthesis. cmake.format.spaceAfterCommandName Space inside parentheses i Pad arguments inside parentheses. cmake.format.spaceInParentheses Indent optional arguments i Align optional arguments one level deeper. cmake.format.allowOptionalArgumentIndentation

Live preview

Highlighted lines are changed by enabled options.

CMake

cmake.format.spaceAfterCommandName Default

message()

cmake.format.spaceInParentheses Default

message(arg)

cmake.format.allowOptionalArgumentIndentation Default

find_package( Boost REQUIRED COMPONENTS filesystem system)

Intelligence

CMake File API

Use CMake's File API to enrich symbols, references, targets, and configurations.

Enable File API true Experimental

Requires Microsoft's CMake Tools extension.
Improves accuracy for targets, configurations, and toolchains.
Enables cross-file symbols and references after CMake configure.

Command signatures are derived from CMake docs and may not be 100% exact in every edge case.

Reviews

Visual Studio Marketplace

Feedback from developers using CMake Language Support.

Ronny Gloden

Marketplace

2025-08-27

“Thanks so much.”

★★★★★

Hei Go

Marketplace

2024-09-09

“Pretty good. Even though I could not install the dotnet extension for organizational reasons, syntax highlighting and autocomplete worked perfectly.”

★★★★★

Raphael Kimbula

Marketplace

2023-11-29

“Thank you for this. This extension actually works, compared to the one from twxs.”

★★★★★

Mikael Hermansson

Marketplace

2022-11-02

“Very good indeed. Being able to rename variables with some degree of confidence is fantastic.”

★★★★★

Antoine Charpentier

Marketplace

2022-10-15

“Far superior than unmaintained CMake extension by twxs.”

★★★★★