STORY: Snippets

[neilpeterson]

Initial work (0.11.0 and 0.12.0)

• Bring snippets under control of extension and provide usage telemetry - Snippets: Put under our control (convert snippets to completions) #746 (0.11.0)
• Basic contextualization - Contextualize snippets #654
• Telemetry

Contextualization:

• Parameter: single snippet or a snippet for each type with a default value?
• Variables: simple variable snippet
• Function: simple function (we do not have one now)
• Resource: list of resources (current behavior minus all non-resource snippets)
• Outputs: simple output

Questions

• What will trigger snippets "", arm, or both? A: both

Make snippet files easier to work with

• Get rid of \t
• Use JSON objects instead of strings for body
• Place into template files in correct context so that authors get validation and Intellisense

Potential future work (discussion)

• Expand contextualization (things like deployment scopes, child resources)
• Some snippets give errors about the number of segments in the resource type because they're written as child resources
• Consider template format (multi-file, can we use ARM JSON, goal = simplify)
• Consider multiple sources / methods for providing snippets:
  • On disk / hand crafted (current method)
  • quick start repo
  • auto-gen
  • bring your own
• Resource generalization: add resource with params and variables (VS does this today)
• Consider how to manage common properties like location. Can we implement resource spanning mechanism for providing a list of locations. Need to consider that not all resources / api versions are available in all regions.
• How will this work affect insert item

Other

• What needs to be done with this repo: https://github.com/Azure/azure-xplat-arm-tooling