IMPORTANT

While it is possible to develop mods using Visual Studio Code, we recommend against it. Consider using IntelliJ IDEA, which has dedicated Java tooling, advanced features and useful community-created plugins such as Minecraft Development.

PREREQUISITES

Make sure you've installed a JDK first.

Installation

You can download Visual Studio Code from code.visualstudio.com or through your preferred package manager.

Prerequisites

Visual Studio Code does not provide Java language support out of the box. However, Microsoft provides a convenient extension pack that contains all the necessary extensions to enable Java language support.

You can install this extension pack from Visual Studio Marketplace.

Or, within Visual Studio Code itself, through the Extensions view.

The Language Support for Java extension will present you with a startup screen to set up a JDK. You can do so if you have not already.