This style of architecture design helps separate different responsibilities of the code editor both for implementing and testing 3. Some modules such as base and editor could be used standalone, while all of them could be swapped with different implementations of the same interfaces and still be fully functional.

These layers all have their own package/folder in the project, which is where the modular pattern comes from. The final layer is the workbench, which hosts the Monaco editor, but also all other “viewlets”, i.e. The next layer is the monaco 2 editor, where the users can write their code. The layer model of the core starts with a base package which provides “general utilities and user interface building blocks.” Next comes the platform which handles all services through dependency injection. This core package is built to be extended using the Extension API to provide nearly all features that exist in VSCode.

As stated in the Source Code Organization document 1, the project takes both a layered as well as a modular approach to software architecture for the core package. Let’s start by taking a look at the project as a whole.

Arch visual studio code