title: Visual Studio Code recipe

🧩 Visual Studio Code recipe

Integrate Mago directly into Visual Studio Code for powerful, automatic PHP code formatting.

This guide uses the Custom Local Formatters extension to connect Mago to VS Code's formatting engine.

Prerequisites

1. Mago Installed: Ensure you have installed Mago by following the Installation Guide.
2. PATH Configured: The mago executable must be available in your system's PATH. The recommended installation methods configure this for you.

Configuration

Install the extension

First, you need to install the bridge extension that allows VS Code to run Mago as a formatter.

1. Open the Extensions view in VS Code (Ctrl+Shift+X).
2. Search for Custom Local Formatters.
3. Install the extension created by jkillian.

Configure settings.json

Next, you'll configure the extension to use Mago and tell VS Code to use it for PHP files.

1. Open your user settings.json file. You can do this by opening the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and searching for "Open User Settings (JSON)".

2. Add the following configuration to your settings.json. If you already have these settings, merge them accordingly.

   {
     // ... your other settings
   
     // 1. Define the Mago command for the formatter extension.
     "customLocalFormatters.formatters": [
       {
         "command": "mago format --stdin-input",
         "languages": ["php"]
       }
     ],
   
     // 2. Configure VS Code to use this extension for PHP files.
     "[php]": {
       // Set the custom formatter as the default for PHP.
       "editor.defaultFormatter": "jkillian.custom-local-formatters",
       // Recommended: automatically format files on save.
       "editor.formatOnSave": true
     }
   }
   

3. Save the settings.json file. You may need to restart VS Code for all changes to take effect.

Usage

Your setup is now complete.

• With editor.formatOnSave enabled, your PHP files will be automatically formatted by Mago every time you save.
• You can also manually format a file at any time by opening the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and running the Format Document command.

Alternative: Run On Save extension

If you prefer to run Mago directly on save (instead of through VS Code's formatter API), you can use the Run On Save extension.

This approach can be useful when using a project-local Mago binary because the command runs in your workspace context and applies your repository configuration (including exclude rules in mago.toml).

Configure settings.json

Add the following configuration to your workspace or user settings.json:

{
  // ... your other settings

  "emeraldwalk.runonsave": {
    "commands": [
      {
        "match": "\\.php$",
        "cmd": "${workspaceFolder}/vendor/bin/mago fmt ${relativeFile}"
      }
    ]
  }
}

After saving a PHP file, VS Code will execute Mago for that file using your workspace's installed binary.