Private extension galleries

Visual Studio Extensibility Cookbook

A private gallery lets you distribute Visual Studio extensions within your team or organization without publishing them to the public Marketplace. Visual Studio can consume extension galleries through Atom feeds, which are simply XML files hosted on any web server or file share.

How it works

  1. You build your .vsix files as normal.
  2. You create an Atom feed (an XML file) that lists each extension with its download URL.
  3. You host both the feed XML and the .vsix files on a web server, file share, or blob storage.
  4. Users add the feed URL in Extensions -> Manage Extensions -> Settings (or your extension registers it automatically).

Create an Atom feed

The feed is a standard Atom XML file with Visual Studio-specific elements. Here’s a minimal example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
  <title type="text">My Company Extensions</title>
  <id>MyCompany-Extensions-Feed</id>
  <updated>2025-01-15T00:00:00Z</updated>

  <entry>
    <id>MyExtension.MyCompany.12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789abc</id>
    <title type="text">My Extension</title>
    <summary type="text">A useful extension for our team.</summary>
    <updated>2025-01-15T00:00:00Z</updated>
    <author>
      <name>My Company</name>
    </author>
    <content type="application/octet-stream"
             src="https://myserver.example.com/extensions/MyExtension.vsix" />
    <Vsix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/vsx-syndication-schema/2010"
          xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
      <Id>MyExtension.MyCompany.12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789abc</Id>
      <Version>1.0.0</Version>
      <References />
    </Vsix>
  </entry>
</feed>

The <content src="..."> attribute points to where the .vsix file can be downloaded. The <Id> in the <Vsix> element must match the ID in your extension’s .vsixmanifest.

Host the feed

You can host the feed and .vsix files anywhere that’s reachable by your users:

Register the feed manually

Users can add your feed URL manually:

  1. Open Extensions -> Manage Extensions.
  2. Click Change your Extensions and Updates settings (gear icon) or go to Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Extensions.
  3. Click Add under Additional Extension Galleries.
  4. Enter the name and URL of your Atom feed.
  5. Click Apply. The gallery now appears under the Online tab.

Register the feed from your extension

If you want your extension to automatically register a private gallery feed, use the [ProvideGalleryFeed] attribute on your package class:

[ProvideGalleryFeed(
    "d7b5e149-3a12-4bc3-8210-1a234567890a",
    "My Company Extensions",
    "https://myserver.example.com/extensions/feed.xml")]
public sealed class MyPackage : ToolkitPackage
{
    // ...
}

The three parameters are:

Parameter Description
guid A unique GUID for identifying this feed registration
name The display name shown in the Extensions and Updates dialog
url The absolute URL to the Atom feed XML

Once installed, the feed will automatically appear in the user’s gallery list.

Automating feed generation

Writing Atom feed XML by hand is tedious. The open-source Private Gallery Creator tool automates this. Point it at a folder of .vsix files and it generates a ready-to-use Atom feed:

PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --input C:\extensions --output C:\gallery\feed.xml

It reads each .vsixmanifest automatically to extract the ID, version, name, and description, then produces a valid feed that Visual Studio can consume directly.

vsixgallery.com - a free public CI gallery

vsixgallery.com is a free gallery service for open-source extension authors. It’s designed for CI/CD workflows where you want to publish nightly or pre-release builds without going through the Marketplace review process.

To use it:

  1. Build your .vsix in CI (GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines, etc.).
  2. Upload the .vsix to vsixgallery.com using a simple HTTP POST.
  3. Users register the gallery feed URL in their Visual Studio to receive updates.

This is a great way to let early adopters test new versions of your extension before an official Marketplace release.

Additional resources

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