We’re excited to announce the August 2024 release of the Python and Jupyter extensions for Visual Studio Code!

This release includes the following announcements:

• Improved Python discovery using python-environment-tools
• Inline variable values shown in source code
• Improvements to the VS Code Native REPL for Python

If you’re interested, you can check the full list of improvements in our changelogs for the Python, Jupyter and Pylance extensions.

Improved Python discovery using python-environment-tools

In the last release, we announced the Python environment tools, which redesigned the Python discovery infrastructure focused on performance. This new approach reduces the need for executing python binaries to probe for information and thus improving performance.

Starting in this release, we are rolling out this enhancement as part of an experiment. If you are interested in trying this out, you can set "python.locator" to "native" in your User settings.json and reload your VS Code window. Visit the python-environment-tools repo to learn more about this feature, ongoing work, and provide feedback.

Inline variable values shown in source code

The Python Debugger extension introduced an Inline Values feature to enhance your Python debugging experience making it easier to track variable values during a debug session. This feature enables the display of variable values directly in the editor, next to the corresponding line of code during a debugging session. This helps you to quickly understand the state of your program without needing to hover over variables or check the variables pane. To enable this feature, set the configuration value debugpy.showPythonInlineValues to true in your User settings.

Note: This feature is currently in exploration state and improvements are actively being made. Please try out this feature and provide feedback in the vscode-python-debugger repo!

Improvements to the VS Code Native REPL for Python

The experimental native REPL ("python.REPL.sendToNativeREPL": true) will now display success/failure UI, similar to that in a Jupyter cell, depending on the outcome of execution. Furthermore, we have made improvements so that we no longer display an empty line on cells that generate no output.

Other Changes and Enhancements

We have also added small enhancements and fixed issues requested by users that should improve your experience working with Python and Jupyter Notebooks in Visual Studio Code. Some notable changes include:

• Pylance now provides a way to disable unreachability hints in @pylance-release#6106
• The Debug Welcome view now includes a button for quick access to automatic Python configurations when a Python file is open in the editor

Call for Community Feedback

As we are planning and prioritizing future work, we value your feedback! Below are a few issues we would love feedback on:

• In a joint effort from various parts of the Python community, we are collecting responses about usage of type annotations in Python. Please take a few minutes to share your experience in the Type Annotation in Python survey! The survey will close at the end of August 2024.
• Design proposal for test coverage in (@vscode-python#22827)

Try out these new improvements by downloading the Python extension and the Jupyter extension from the Marketplace, or install them directly from the extensions view in Visual Studio Code (Ctrl + Shift + X or ⌘ + ⇧ + X). You can learn more about Python support in Visual Studio Code in the documentation. If you run into any problems or have suggestions, please file an issue on the Python VS Code GitHub page.