--- title: Microsoft's VS Code documentary is out, and it's a good... description: Microsoft released an official documentary tracing VS Code's history, from Erich Gamma's Zurich team building the Monaco browser editor, to the decision to... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-s-vs-code-documentary-is-out-and-it-s-a-good-origin-story-xuolhnkos twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Microsoft's VS Code documentary is out, and it's a good origin story | daily.dev og:description: Microsoft released an official documentary tracing VS Code's history, from Erich Gamma's Zurich team building the Monaco browser editor, to the decision to... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-s-vs-code-documentary-is-out-and-it-s-a-good-origin-story-xuolhnkos og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/XuoLHNkoS.png og:image:alt: Microsoft's VS Code documentary is out, and it's a good origin story og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Microsoft's VS Code documentary is out, and it's a good origin story **[Trends](https://daily.dev/sources/trends)** · 2 min read · 70 upvotes · 12 comments ## Summary Microsoft released an official documentary tracing VS Code's history, from Erich Gamma's Zurich team building the Monaco browser editor, to the decision to ship it as a desktop app via Electron, to open-sourcing it, the creation of the Language Server Protocol, remote development features (WSL, SSH, Dev Containers, Codespaces), and eventually GitHub Copilot. The film also touches on the awkward reality that Copilot required VS Code to become a backend-dependent product, and that forks like Cursor, Windsurf, and Google's Antigravity now build on the same open codebase, putting Copilot in direct competition with tools built atop its own foundation. ## Content Microsoft dropped an official documentary on VS Code this week, and the reaction from the dev community is somewhere between nostalgic and genuinely impressed. The film is a proper oral history: Eric Gamm's Zurich hire, the Monaco browser editor experiment, the bet on Electron, the Language Server Protocol, remote development, and eventually GitHub Copilot turning a local text editor into a cloud-backed AI platform. Founding engineers, TypeScript contributors, Red Hat and Meta partners all show up. It's thorough. The people who were there are clearly feeling it. Scott Hanselman called it "a crazy time" and told people to watch the full documentary. Wes Bos, who shot his segment over a year ago, joked that they "always do me dirty with the titles" when the trailer dropped. The tone from insiders is less "look how far we've come" and more genuine surprise that the whole thing actually worked. The documentary's central argument is that VS Code won by meeting developers where they already were rather than demanding a platform switch. That reads as obvious in hindsight, but the film makes a decent case that it wasn't obvious at all in 2015, when the editor market looked mature and the idea of shipping a browser-based Electron app as a serious dev tool was a real gamble. The more interesting thread is what happens after the origin story. Multiple segments trace how GitHub Copilot changed the product's fundamental nature: VS Code went from a local client with smart extensions to a service-dependent tool backed by cloud infrastructure for AI models, capacity planning, and predictive completions. That's a different product category. The documentary frames this as evolution; you could also frame it as the editor becoming a distribution channel for Microsoft's AI bets. That tension is mostly left unexamined. The film acknowledges Cursor, Windsurf, and Google's Antigravity as forks built on VS Code's foundation, which is either a sign of platform success or a sign that Microsoft built the commons and others are monetizing it. The documentary picks the first reading. The community will argue about the second one for a while yet. ## Questions this post answers ### Why do Go and Rust tooling work the same way across different code editors? They rely on the Language Server Protocol, a standard that emerged from the same era as VS Code's development. Editors that implement LSP can support consistent tooling like autocomplete, go-to-definition, and diagnostics for a given language, regardless of which editor a developer chooses to use. _Developers comparing editor tooling can follow LSP-related developments on daily.dev._ ### What editors are built on top of VS Code's open-source codebase? Cursor, Windsurf, and Google's Antigravity are all forks built on VS Code's open-source foundation. This has created a notable dynamic where GitHub Copilot, Microsoft's own AI coding assistant, now competes directly with AI-focused tools built on the very codebase Microsoft open-sourced. _Developers weighing AI coding tools built on VS Code can track the space on daily.dev._ ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@devgenx** · 5 upvotes > This is a great documentary for the real nerds out there. It shows what happens when creators are given room to create. > > > Side note, wish they had mentioned Brackets a little more. We all know vsCode was inspired a lot by what Brackets was doing at the time and only one person mentions it, in passing, near the end. **@markozakrajsekgeozs** · 3 upvotes > I never thought that a documentary about some “writing” tool could be so interesting! **@superroach** · 2 upvotes > ... and you don't link the doco? **@spiderclam** · 2 upvotes > Here you go [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHL3XzjpT5w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHL3XzjpT5w) **@zebulun78** · 1 upvotes > Uh... link please? ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why ‘boring’ VS Code keeps winning](https://daily.dev/posts/why-boring-vs-code-keeps-winning-vtyoudaza) · InfoWorld · 104 upvotes · 20 comments - [Every AI code editor wants to replace VS Code, but the smartest ones are just extending it](https://daily.dev/posts/every-ai-code-editor-wants-to-replace-vs-code-but-the-smartest-ones-are-just-extending-it-8lcbafxnc) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#microsoft](https://daily.dev/tags/microsoft), [#github](https://daily.dev/tags/github), [#vscode](https://daily.dev/tags/vscode), [#lsp](https://daily.dev/tags/lsp) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-s-vs-code-documentary-is-out-and-it-s-a-good-origin-story-xuolhnkos) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Microsoft's VS Code documentary is out, and it's a good origin story","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-s-vs-code-documentary-is-out-and-it-s-a-good-origin-story-xuolhnkos","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-s-vs-code-documentary-is-out-and-it-s-a-good-origin-story-xuolhnkos"},"datePublished":"2026-09-04T17:07:37.659Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T19:34:03.574Z","description":"Microsoft released an official documentary tracing VS Code's history, from Erich Gamma's Zurich team building the Monaco browser editor, to the decision to...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kHL3XzjpT5w/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kHL3XzjpT5w/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Trends","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Trends","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--ZfSp3asX--/f_auto,q_auto/v1780996004/logos/trends?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/trends"},"commentCount":12,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-s-vs-code-documentary-is-out-and-it-s-a-good-origin-story-xuolhnkos","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":70},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":12}],"keywords":"open-source,microsoft,github,vscode,lsp","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Trends","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/trends"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Microsoft's VS Code documentary is out, and it's a good origin story"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-s-vs-code-documentary-is-out-and-it-s-a-good-origin-story-xuolhnkos","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"This is a great documentary for the real nerds out there. It shows what happens when creators are given room to create.\nSide note, wish they had mentioned Brackets a little more. We all know vsCode was inspired a lot by what Brackets was doing at the time and only one person mentions it, in passing, near the end.","datePublished":"2026-09-05T11:04:24.129Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/XuoLHNkoS#c-Hhu5c7z7N","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Mike","url":"https://daily.dev/devgenx","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--PrWOWtSq--/f_auto/v1789486214/avatars/avatar_ytCVp6dQicn9P0yKfhQCI?_a=BAMAMicg0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":5}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"I never thought that a documentary about some “writing” tool could be so interesting!","datePublished":"2026-09-05T14:16:54.805Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/XuoLHNkoS#c-oI91vZsQp","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Marko Zakrajsek","url":"https://daily.dev/markozakrajsekgeozs","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--slY3-STy--/f_auto/v1783585373/avatars/avatar_SbncGJHaRHf7KoebEkT1L?_a=BAMAMicg0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"… and you don’t link the doco?","datePublished":"2026-09-08T12:25:34.168Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/XuoLHNkoS#c-r15mu9ScR","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Brett","url":"https://daily.dev/superroach","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/63333?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Here you go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHL3XzjpT5w","datePublished":"2026-09-09T11:31:12.551Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/XuoLHNkoS#c-Or7DG2nXR","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Roberto Wesley Overdijk","url":"https://daily.dev/spiderclam","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/781745?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Uh… link please?","datePublished":"2026-09-09T05:41:41.349Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/XuoLHNkoS#c-dVjBuiIMq","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Curtis Ling","url":"https://daily.dev/zebulun78","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--jpKJJLvV--/f_auto/v1785037077/avatars/avatar_XCReJ0OiHTmBjvtKA2H5k?_a=BAMAMicg0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-s-vs-code-documentary-is-out-and-it-s-a-good-origin-story-xuolhnkos#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why do Go and Rust tooling work the same way across different code editors?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"They rely on the Language Server Protocol, a standard that emerged from the same era as VS Code's development. 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