Skip to content

kdb Visual Studio Code Extension Release Notes

This page details the release notes for the latest kdb Visual Studio Code Extension releases. To find the release notes for an older release, refer to the previous releases page.

v1.20.0

Release date: 2026-08-28

Enhancements

  • Every connected connection now has its own output console in the Terminal panel. Query results, and the kdb Insights Enterprise scratchpad log, are written to the console of the connection that produced them instead of to a single shared output channel. When results are sent to the KDB RESULTS view, the console prints a link to open it.

  • Files that are not assigned to a connection now run on the active target — the KX terminal last started or focused, whether that is a REPL or a connection's output console. The status bar item and the code lens are now offered for any q, quke, py, or sql file rather than for workbooks alone.

  • The status bar connection and timeout selectors now follow KX Notebooks. Opening a notebook shows the connection it is assigned to, (active) when it has none, and the query timeout when that connection is an Insights one, in the same way as for a q, quke, Python or sql file.

  • Connections can now be chosen for files opened from outside the workspace. Previously, selecting one failed with the error Document (…) is not in workspace. Assignments for these files are kept in memory and are lost when VS Code restarts.

  • Added an Output Destination selector to the editor title bar for q, quke, py, sql, and datasource (kdb.json) files, so that you can send query results either to the connection's output console or to the KDB RESULTS view.

  • Images returned by a process, such as a plot, are now written to their own .plot file and opened in the chart editor, so that a process that emits several images produces a separate chart view for each image.

  • Images emitted by an Insights connection's scratchpad over its WebSocket are now rendered. In a KX Notebook, the image is appended to the output of the cell that produced it. Elsewhere, the image opens in the chart viewer.

  • When connected to a process that uses vscode.q and defines .vscode.customQEvaluator, error messages thrown by the customQEvaluator now include the call stack.

  • Insights connection addresses must now be secure https:// URLs. The extension reports a validation error for any other address. The address placeholder in the connection form now uses example.com, and the login flow follows authentication redirects.

  • Connection form fields are now marked as required, and validation messages name the field they refer to (for example Port number is required. rather than Input value must be a number.).

  • vscode.q, the API injected into connected q processes, is now published as an asset with each release.

Fixes

  • Fixed an issue where evaluating a single-character Python query threw a type error.

  • Fixed the syntax highlighting of the by clause.

  • Fixed an issue where a PNG returned as an array of bytes was not recognized as an image.

  • Fixed an issue where Insights queries and scratchpad populates did not report a readable error if the coordinator or gateway connection dropped mid-request. These now report the error and are recorded in the query history.

  • The datasource notice for a missing database is now a warning rather than an error.

  • Fixed an issue where the status bar timeout selector stayed hidden after an Insights connection was assigned to a file that had no connection, until another editor was focused.

Internal improvements

  • Replaced the UI test suite with an end-to-end suite (npm run test:e2e) that drives the extension through its real commands in its own VS Code window, against stand-in Insights and q processes.

  • Added q unit tests covering vscode.q and evaluatePy.q, and split the evaluation and formatting parts of evaluatePy.q.

  • secure.q now loads the compiled vscode.q instead of the templated source.

  • Excluded files that are not needed from the packaged .vsix.

  • CI skips the q test job on pull requests from forks, and .sh files are checked out with LF line endings so they run under bash on Windows.