Epic: Restart workspaces directly from VS Code Desktop

[loujaybee]

Press Release

⚠️ To be confirmed (including user + customer quotes)

Context

ℹ️ What thinking lead us to starting this work?

VS Code Desktop is useful to some users because they can:

• Re-use keybindings, (easier) access to localhost.
• Access to the extension marketplace.
• Desktop-like shortcuts (e.g. CMD + Tab to change windows).

This is useful for users who don't like working in a browser, and want an experience that is already as close to their local experience as possible. However, the current VS Code Desktop has some rough edges, as compared with a simple desktop flow, particularly when it comes to opening (and then restarting a session).

Value

ℹ️ What is the impact to a user, or Gitpod?

We want to close the gap between the experience from working on VS Code Desktop in Gitpod, and the general local experience. We commonly hear from users that restarting sessions is quite challenging, as the user has to leave VS Code Desktop go to the browser, find the workspace, and restart. This is especially challenging if your workspace start time is long, or you have a lot of setup (e.g. other clients, like database, or SSH connections to re-establish).

Restart an open workspace from VS Code Desktop directly. Currently timed out sessions have to be re-opened from the browser, however this should be as simple as clicking a button to restart / re-connect the session.

Potential Solutions / Investigations

Timebox the investigation: Up until Monday the 6th March.

Internal document on list of potential solutions.

Acceptance Criteria

⚠️ Dependent on chosen solution

In Scope

⚠️ Dependent on chosen solution

Out of scope

⚠️ Dependent on chosen solution

Measurement

• Qualitative surveying / interviewing of the users experiences
• No quantitative measures defined (to be confirmed)

Relates to:

• Epic: Private beta of initial public APIs #10798
• Epic: Prebuild Public APIs #15213
• Epic: Resource Usage (Billing) Public APIs #11335
• Epic: Automate off + onboarding via Public API (users, teams & projects) #10799
• Epic: Personal Access Tokens #14280
• Epic: Create external workspace dashboards or clients (e.g. CLI or IdP) via Public API #10427
• Epic: Service accounts (Auth tokens not tied to users) #15419
• Epic: Foundations for Fine Grained Authorization #15632
• Epic: Automated workspace creation (e.g. in CI pipelines) via Public API #15829

[loujaybee]

https://github.com/gitpod-io/customers/issues/57

[mittalyashu]

Please add this option, it's really time consuming to open Gitpod dashboard, every-time the workspace times out.

Due to this limitation, I have to stick to single workspace use, for working on multiple tasks. Instead of using new workspace per task.