We are pleased to announce that the March 2020 release of the Python Extension for Visual Studio Code is now available. You can download the Python extension from the Marketplace, or install it directly from the extension gallery in Visual Studio Code. If you already have the Python extension installed, you can also get the latest update by restarting Visual Studio Code. You can learn more about Python support in Visual Studio Code in the documentation.
This release is focused mostly on product quality. We closed a total of 66 issues, 43 of them being bug fixes. But we’re also pleased to include a brand-new Python debugger: debugpy!
If you’re interested, you can check the full list of improvements in our changelog.
New Debugger
We’re excited to announce that in this release we’re including a new debugger, debugpy. The debugger team has put a lot of effort into making it a faster and even more reliable Python debugger. Along with the debugger, a new feature also comes: an easier configuration experience to attach the debugger to local processes.
Attaching to local processes
Sometimes you may want to attach the debugger to a Python process that is running on your machine, but that can be tricky if, for example, you don’t have control over the application that launched that process.
We made it easy to be done with our new configuration experience for attaching the debugger to local processes.
If you don’t have a launch.json file on your workspace folder, you can simply start a debug session (by pressing F5 or through Run > Start Debugging) and you’ll be presented with a list of debug configuration options. When you select “Attach using Process ID”, it will display a list of processes running locally on your machine: