Skip to main content

VS Code Server

VS Code server is a VS Code session that is run on the HPC cluster and access via a web UI. To Launch a session select the VS Code Server interactive app from the hpc.grit.ucsb.edu dashboard or the Interactive apps dropdown. After selecting the application you will be presented with options for the session shown below:

  • Account: your SLURM account, this will be slurm_users by default, or slurm_labname for those with private resources
  • Partition: grit_nodes is the default 
  • Job Duration: set a number of hours for your Jupyter Notebook to run, after this expires your job will be stopped.
  • CPUs: set the number of CPU cores to be allotted for this task, with a maximum of 24. (this maximum is selected so as to not consume 100% of the cores on any of the HPC systems in the GRIT stack)
  • RAM: set the amount of RAM in gigabytes available to this task, with a maximum of 256GB. (this maximum is selected so as to not consume 100% of the RAM on any of the HPC systems in the GRIT stack)
  • Job Name: this field is optional and may be used to differentiate tasks if multiple are running under the same account. 

 Screenshot from 2025-10-07 10-13-02.png

After filling out the required fields select the Launch button. The spin up may take a few seconds to a few minutes depending on how busy the HPC cluster is. Once your session is ready a connect button will appear:

Screenshot from 2025-10-07 10-15-05.png

Selecting Connect to Code Server will open a new web page with a VS Code window as shown below:

Screenshot from 2025-10-07 10-15-40.png

This window will behave just like a local VS Code session, including persisting settings and installed extensions across sessions. 

Jupyter Notebooks

To select a custom python kernel / environment to use with VS Code via OOD please try the following:

  • press: Ctrl+Shift+P
  • type: Python: Select Interpreter
  • enter the path or select the find option to browse graphically
  • select your python env
Screenshot_2026-07-14_12-08-30.pngScreenshot_2026-07-14_12-10-06.png
Screenshot_2026-07-14_12-10-16.png
now when you go to select your kernel in a notebook you should see your option selected from the previous steps as shown in the attached screenshot. 

Known Issues

We are running the Open Source version of vscode and not the microsoft official version. This is done to comply with campus policy, ensure stability, and avoid potential licensing issues. As a result some extensions are not available via the extension store and side loading them may not work as expected. 

Back to top