We’re excited to announce the latest 1.21 release of the CMake Tools extension for Visual Studio Code. This update brings a host of new updates, including addressing one of our top-voted issues for multi-root improvements and adding CMake presets version 10 support. To view the full list of updates with this release, please look at our CHANGELOG.

This release features the following ten contributions from our open-source community. Thank you for your continued support!

• Allow specifying a launch configuration which can be used when debugging tests via CTest by @nerixyz
• Adding a new command cmake.cacheVariable by @malsyned
• Grouping default build targets based on CMake FOLDER property by @itzandroidtab
• Add name de-mangling for C++ symbols in the Test Explorer view by @rjaegers
• Fixes to case preservation for include paths on MacOS by @tringenbach
• Reduce heap usage with new optimized splits for large compile commands by @borjamunozf
• Remove dependency for backtrace in presence of DEF_SOURCE_LINE by @rjaegers
• Fix gnuld error parsing false positive on make errors, false negatives due to trailing \r, and false parsing of new “multiple definitions” error by @0xemgy
• Fix bug where unrelated symlinks are read as variant files by @vitorramos
• Fix ENOENT error at vs code startup on some circumstances by @STMicroelectronics

Multi-root improvements

We addressed one of our top-voted customer feedback issues to improve multi-root integration and allow users more customizability to enable/disable certain folders in mixed-language circumstances.

Now, we have added support for a new cmake.exclude setting that allows users to select specific folders to ignore in multi-root scenarios.

For example, when developing with 3^rd party packages, you can specify for the extension to ignore these at build via this new setting, improving the overall user experience for your needs.

CMake presets version 10 support

We have also added support for the latest version 10 of CMake Presets, which adds two new features to enhance clarity and visualization in your build configurations: $comment and graphviz support.

CMake presets v10 introduces a new $comment field that allows developers to add inline documentation within their preset’s definitions, making it easier to understand and distinguish between different configurations. To learn more about using formatting using $comment, you can visit Kitware’s documentation.

Additionally, CMake presets now supports graphviz, which allows you to visualize the dependencies between targets and external libraries in your project. By specifying a graphviz field in your CMake presets, you can enable Graphviz DOT files that can be rendered via Graphviz.

What do you think?

Download Visual Studio Code and the CMake Tools extension and let us know what you think. We would love to see what you contribute to our repo. Please create an issue if there’s anything you’d like to see and upvote/downvote any existing issues. Comment below or reach us via email at visualcpp@microsoft.com, via X at @VisualC., or via Bluesky at @msftcpp.bsky.social.