Robocorp Visual Studio Code Overview

Install the Robocorp Code and Robot Framework Language Server extensions for Visual Studio Code from the Visual Studio Marketplace.

Robocorp Code extension brings in the Robocorp toolchain to create, run and deploy bots as well as the Robocorp activity bar.

Robot Framework Language Server handles the Robot Framework syntax side bringing in code-completion, documentation, etc. supports.

Robocorp activity bar and Command palette

Robocorp Code -extension brings in the Robocorp activity bar. From the activity bar, you can find most of the commands with UI buttons to perform them.

All commands are also available via Command palette:

Windows/Linux: Ctrl+Shift+P, macOS: Shift+Command+P
Type robocorp to see the list or type what you are looking for, like run robot

Creating a new robot

Open the Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (macOS: Shift+Command+P).
Select Robocorp: Create Robot.
Select a template.

Running the robot

Running using Command Palette

Open the Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (macOS: Shift+Command+P).
Select Robocorp: Run Robot.
If you have multiple robots in the opened directory, select the one you want to run.

Running using the Activity Bar

Click the Robocorp icon in the Activity Bar.
Select the robot and the task.
Click the launch icon.

Debugging the robot

You can add breakpoints and debug the robot execution.

Important: Disable the Python > Experiments setting. Otherwise, setting the Python path will fail.

Open the Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (macOS: Shift+Command+P).
Select Robocorp: Set python executable based on robot.yaml.
Add a breakpoint in the robot script.

Debugging using the Command Palette

Open the Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (macOS: Shift+Command+P).
Select Robocorp: Debug Robot.

Debugging using the Activity Bar

Click the Robocorp icon in the Activity Bar.
Select the robot and the task.
Click the debug icon.

Linking to Control Room

Open the Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (macOS: Shift+Command+P).
Select Robocorp: Link to Control Room.
Press Enter to open Control Room, where you can add new access credentials.
Click Add Credential.
Provide a name, click Add.
Click on the View icon.
Click Copy to clipboard.
In VS Code, paste the access credential you copied from Control Room.

Unlinking and removing credentials from Control Room

Open the Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (macOS: Shift+Command+P).
Select Robocorp: Unlink and remove credentials from Control Room.

Uploading the robot to Control Room

Open the Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (macOS: Shift+Command+P).
Select Robocorp: Upload Robot to the Control Room.
Select a workspace.
Create a new robot or select an existing robot to overwrite.

Connecting to Control Room vault

Open the Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (macOS: Shift+Command+P).
Select Robocorp: Connect to online secrets vault.
Select the correct workspace and the extension will enable the Vault.
You can now use Vault secrets defined in the Control Room without local vault.json files.

Disconnecting from Control Room vault

Open the Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (macOS: Shift+Command+P).
Select Robocorp: Disconnect from online secrets vault.

Using work items

Key concepts

Work items created and used in VS Code are for local development and testing only; they do not affect or transfer to Control Room executions.

For development, work items are just folders under devdata:

work-items-in: Folder to store your input work items.
work-items-out: Folder where the execution places the work item outputs. These should be excluded in .gitignore as outputs are changing and dynamic.
work-items.json is a reserved file name used to identify work item structures; you can define multiple work items in it. If your work item uses files, you should place those files into the work item folder.

Usage

You can find the Work items panel in the Robocorp Code extension activity bar.

From the Work items panel, you can...

Create new work item inputs, bringing in template content to get started.
Open work items to view and edit.
See the output work items from previous runs > work-items-out.
Copy a run output work item as an input work item.
Delete work items.
If the robot contains work items, the execution of the robot will ask you which work item you want to use as input. You can select inputs and previous run outputs for execution:

Saving locators in VS Code

Click the Robocorp icon in the Activity Bar.
Select a robot in the Robots panel.
From the Locators panel, select Add Browser Locator, Add Image Locator, or Add Windows Locator.
The UI Inspector opens.
Follow the instructions on the UI Inspector interface.
When you save the locators, you can use them with the alias: -prefix in your Robot code
- Click Button alias:SubmitButton
- Saving locators makes them re-usable and eases maintenance tasks later on.
- NOTE: alias: will not work with Playwright

Flow Explorer

Robot Framework Flow Explorer gives you a visual presentation of your robots flow into a browser window. The flow explorer targets the active .robot file in VS Code. Flow Explorer can be accessed via Command Palette or via the extension side bar

flow-explorer

Open your tasks.robot -file (or .robot file of your choosing)
Via Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (macOS: Shift+Command+P).
- Select Robot Framework: Open Robot Flow Explorer.
Via Robocorp activity bar

Open a Robot environment terminal session

Open the Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (macOS: Shift+Command+P).
Select Robocorp: Terminal with Robot environment.

Clear Robocorp (RCC) environments

Open the Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (macOS: Shift+Command+P).
Select Robocorp: Clear Robocorp (RCC) environments and restart Robocorp Code.

Video instructions

You can also see the whole workflow and follow along in this short video series:

Watch us code a complete robot from scratch in this live-coding video. The robot Google Translates song lyrics from source to target language and saves the original and the translated lyrics as text files:

Changelog

View the Robocorp extension changelog to keep up-to-date with improvements and new features!

April 6, 2022