The MSSQL Extension for VS Code, Microsoft's open source code editor, has been updated and now has a schema designer, schema compare tool, and local SQL Server containers. 

The MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code can be used by developers building applications in VSCode that use Azure SQL (including Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server on Azure VMs), SQL Database in Fabric (Preview) or SQL Server as backend databases. It comes with features for connecting to databases, designing and managing database schemas, exploring database objects, executing queries, and visualizing query plans.

This release makes generally available three new tools - SQL Compare, Schema Designer, and Local SQL Server Container. 

The Schema Compare tool can be used to compare schemas across databases or database projects so developers can apply changes knowing they're not going to cause problems. The tool includes a diff view that can help track differences and update objects with just a few clicks.

The Schema Designer is a visual tool for designing and managing database schemas. It can be used to create or edit tables, relationships, and constraints through the UI. Until now, developers had to write T-SQL for these tasks. The tool will display relationships even after filtering, so you can still see underlying schema connections when focusing on a subset. It also has tooltips on truncated table/column names to reveal the full name on hover.

The third addition is a Local SQL Server Container tool that can be used to provision local SQL Server containers directly from the extension without the need to change to Docker's CLI or desktop app.

Alongside the main additions, this release promises more responsive query results with an enhanced performance and fixed bugs in the query grid, including export and display issues. There's also a new Text View mode meaning users can view query results as plain text for quick scanning or copy-pasting. The extension now remembers SQL Authentication passwords during your current VS Code session (until restart); and there's better stability for GitHub Copilot to avoid the errors that could occur when switching database connections during a chat session.

The updated extension is available on the Visual Studio marketplace and GitHub now.

More Information

MSSQL Extension On GitHub

MSSQL Extension on Visual Studio Marketplace

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