Onboarding experience: Installing git does not get synced with onboarding task/built-in terminal

[hawkticehurst]

When trying to complete the "Install git" task in the VS Code onboarding process I had issues with VS Code recognizing that I did actually install git and could only fix the problem by closing and reopening VS Code entirely.

It would be great if this synced without having to close the app because it breaks the flow of the onboarding experience.

Issue Type: Bug

0. (You might need a new unconfigured a machine without git installed)
1. Run "Developer: Reset Welcome Page Walkthrough Progress"
2. Find the "Install git" task in the "Boost your productivity" section (note that this might not show up if you have git installed)
3. Separately, open up the Powershell app in with Admin privileges
4. Install chocolatey via Powershell
5. Use chocolatey to install git via Powershell
6. Go back to VS Code

You should see that the "Install git" task is still rendered as not complete. On top of that if you open the built-in VS Code terminal and type "choco" or "git" it should report back errors saying that these commands do not exist.

To fix the problem, close and reopen VS Code entirely and you should see that the "Install git" task is now replaced with a new task for installing a repo and if you run the same commands in the built-in terminal they should succeed.

Details

VS Code version: Code - Insiders 1.68.0-insider (87630a9, 2022-06-06T17:09:26.575Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.22000
Restricted Mode: No

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11370H @ 3.30GHz (8 x 3302)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled canvas_oop_rasterization: disabled_off direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on oop_rasterization: enabled opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_renderer: enabled_on video_decode: enabled video_encode: enabled vulkan: disabled_off webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled
Load (avg)	undefined
Memory (System)	31.84GB (17.20GB free)
Process Argv	--crash-reporter-id f92bbe85-d251-4567-9fb4-e18928161621
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

Extensions (6)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
vscode-html-css	ecm	1.12.2
python	ms-	2022.7.11581010
vscode-pylance	ms-	2022.6.0
jupyter	ms-	2022.6.1001601017
jupyter-keymap	ms-	1.0.0
jupyter-renderers	ms-	1.0.8

A/B Experiments

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[daviddossett]

Not sure if this is formally related to the terminal? cc @Tyriar and @meganrogge just in case.

[hawkticehurst]

Managed to recreate the issue (uninstalling/reinstalling git and VS Code) and snagged some screenshots in case it helps.

Here Powershell has git installed correctly, but VS Code still hasn't recognized the change.

After closing and reopening VS Code, git now successfully runs in the built-in terminal and the "Install git" task has been replaced with a clone repo task.

[hawkticehurst]

Oh, also it's probably worth noting that I double-checked that closing and reopening a new terminal session does not sync up the changes. VS Code itself must be closed and reopened for the changes to be picked up.

[chryw]

Echo to the part that perhaps some hint text telling me to restart VS Code (or maybe just kill terminal? I haven't tried) to refresh the terminal after installing git, or chocolatey if I'm on Windows, would be nice to have. It's perfectly fair that terminal error message tells me unrecognized command, but for net new users some hint in the tutorial would be nice.

[hawkticehurst]

Yes totally, I love that idea. Even just having that line of text telling me to restart would be a huge win in keeping the onboarding process running smoothly imo

[miguelsolorio]

cc @lszomoru @digitarald given that we can detect when git is not installed (and we show a custom welcome view for SCM) this seems like it's totally possible.

[Tyriar]

If your $Path environment variable changes on Windows you need to restart the entire VS Code window unfortunately. The feature request to make this act better on Windows is #47816.

Moving to @lszomoru for the restart note which should be Windows only.

[lszomoru]

@digitarald, can we update both the getting started item as well as the SCM welcome view to explicitly call out that VS Code should be restarted after git has been installed? I see this as a tactical change until we invest in streamlining the installation of git.

[digitarald]

I rather get to an install vs making the onboarding text more complex. Restarting VS Code is common for users after some setup; so I am not too worried as we didn't get any other reports.