Agent unconditionally overwrites VS Code git auth settings configured by template authors

[jovermier]

This section of code overwrites the vscode-web settings that are provided by the developer defined tf file.

coder/cli/gitauth/vscode.go

Lines 21 to 28 in f41275e

	mutate := func(m map[string]interface{}) {
	// This prevents VS Code from overriding GIT_ASKPASS, which
	// we use to automatically authenticate Git providers.
	m["git.useIntegratedAskPass"] = false
	// This prevents VS Code from using it's own GitHub authentication
	// which would circumvent cloning with Coder-configured providers.
	m["github.gitAuthentication"] = false
	}

module "vscode-web" {
 count = data.coder_workspace.me.start_count
 source = "registry.coder.com/modules/vscode-web/coder"
 version = "1.3.0"

 settings = { ... } # <- these settings get overwritten
}

Ideally merge the settings otherwise leave it up to the developer to set the settings in their terraform file.

[jovermier]

Any update when this will be fixed? It is a real nuisance with the developers who are copying the settings from old repos to new and not getting the new settings as they come out.

[rowansmithau]

Of note is this also affects the ability to use the customizations.vscode.settings stanza in the devcontainers spec (https://containers.dev/supporting#visual-studio-code) in a devcontainer.json file as /home/vscode/.vscode-server/data/Machine/settings.json in the devcontainer is written with the below content as a result of having an external authentication method configured within Coder:

{
 "git.useIntegratedAskPass": false,
 "github.gitAuthentication": false
}

This results in the desired settings never being applied to the devcontainer due to settings.json already being present.

The workaround is to either open VS Code Desktop once, run rm -rf /home/vscode/.vscode-server/data/Machine/{settings.json,.writeMachineSettingsMarker,.installExtensionsMarker}, exit VS Code Desktop, then connect VS Code Desktop to the workspace once again, OR perform a rebuild of the container from within VS Code Desktop.

If using such a workaround it is recommended to add the two automatically added git settings to your devcontainer.json file if their usage is still desired.

Reference:

coder/agent/agent.go

Lines 1224 to 1228 in c3e3249

	if manifest.GitAuthConfigs > 0 {
	// If this fails, we should consider surfacing the error in the
	// startup log and setting the lifecycle state to be "start_error"
	// (after startup script completion), but for now we'll just log it.
	err := gitauth.OverrideVSCodeConfigs(a.filesystem)

[matifali]

@DevelopmentCats i think this is very related to what you were doing. Please check.

[DevelopmentCats]

This PR should resolve the issues with merging settings in vscode-web. Feel free to take a look and offer any insight here. coder/registry#758