Publish Pre-Release automatically

[Lemmingh]

Proposal

VS Code 1.63 will allow extensions to have "Pre-Release" (aka "beta", "Insiders"): microsoft/vscode#15756

I'd suggest that we publish a Pre-Release every month, and roll out a stable one only when receiving positive feedback. The major benefits are:

• We can get more users involved easily to verify significant changes. e.g. LaTeX is not preserved in TOC text #903, Table auto formatting does not work properly when "|" exists in content #1000

• High-impact problems can be mitigated in time. e.g. Respect Inline Suggestion to improve compatibility with GitHub Copilot #1011

• We won't have to spend unexpectedly long time between releases. e.g. v3.5.0 release plan #966

Tasks

• Target Node.js 14 and VS Code 1.63. @Lemmingh

  • vsce 2.5, which supports the --pre-release flag, requires Node.js 14: feat: add --pre-release flag and support microsoft/vscode-vsce#654

  • VS Code 1.63 or higher is required: Test pre-release extensions as an Extension author microsoft/vscode#138068

  This is also quite natural, as things have changed so greatly in the past year that we don't need to stick to our original targeting plan.

• Revise life cycle management. @yzhang-gh

  Needs Discussion.

• Update CHANGELOG format. @yzhang-gh

  Needs Discussion.

• Create a protected environment. @yzhang-gh

  • I'd recommend "publish" as its name.

  • It should require approval from @yzhang-gh

  • It should have a wait timer of at least 60 minutes.

  • Please set your VSTS PAT for Marketplace Manage as the VSCE_PAT secret there. Note that a VSTS PAT expires in a few months (less than one year). Please remember to update the secret.

  Thank you.

• Create the CD workflow (publish.yml). @Lemmingh

  Given 65f0fa3, this should not be difficult.

• Update docs. @Lemmingh

  Tune the wording of contributing/diagnostic-data.

[yzhang-gh]

VS Code 1.63 will allow extensions to have "Pre-Release" (aka "beta", "Insiders"): microsoft/vscode#15756

That's interesting. Will do it when I have enough time (one month to go!)

[Lemmingh]

Re-target requires refactor; refactor requires re-target; just like a circular reference. I've been playing with hundreds of compilation errors for three days. 🤐

[Lemmingh]

https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_66#_electron-17-update

VS Code 1.66 adopts Node.js 16, while I'm still stuck with webpack. VS Code's docs is so rough about debugging that I have to investigate samples. 😖

[yzhang-gh]

That's sad. (I remember that I said I had big trouble with webpack and now you too 😂)

[Lemmingh]

Eventually, a new build pipeline seems to work. I've changed 27 files so far. I'll submit a PR tomorrow if everything, excluding running tests locally, looks fine. Sigh.