activation scripts vscode extension

i was working on a large scientific codebase that required some environment variables to be set and setup scripts to be run before doing anything. i wanted to automate this environment activation, just like we do in .bashrc-like scripts, but inside visual studio code’s integrated terminal. after some time spent experimenting with hacks and workaround, i decided to make this into a tiny VS Code extension.

it is not really usable by a large audience as it:

• probably has a lot of untested edge-cases
• likely constitutes a security vulnerability: if you get someone to checkout your repo with activation.json and they have the extension, you can make their vscode run arbitrary commands and scripts on terminal startup!
• is only limited to unix-like systems

anyway, it does the trick for me, solving a specific problem, and that’s everything i wanted!