VS Code extensions installed at runtime lost after session pod expires.

[NickLagogiannis]

Greetings to everyone,

We followed the https://main--theia-cloud.netlify.app/documentation/setuptheiacloud/ to install theia cloud through helm and it's working. Even though, we have modified the values.yaml at theia-cloud helm chart to have persisted storage (set ephemeral storage to false ), this option is applied only to the "home/project/persisted" folder inside the container.

When we try to install a vs code extension from the marketplace, the extension is installed until the session ends, after we login again, a new pod is created, so every installation is lost.

Is there any option to keep the installed vs code extensions persisted after the new session pod?
Can I edit values.yaml file to achieve that and what do I need to configure?

[jfaltermeier]

Hi,

This is up by the application developer. You can specify where the persisted workspace storage is attached for each application using mountPath in your AppDefinition:
https://theia-cloud.io/documentation/addapplication/#add-an-app-definition
You need to ensure that extensions are included in the workspace. This can be done, for example, by mounting the workspace directly as the home directory or by configuring your application/Theia instance to use a different directory to store the extensions.