How to test VS Code extensions use only .vsix as input artifact?

Question

I'm super new in this field and I hope this is not a stupid question. Is it possible to test a VS Code extension without building it using the dev source code?
We are trying to develop a test automation framework of several extensions developed by our organization. The requirement is that we should use only ".vsix" files (which are packaged by the pipeline) for test.
I searched for several tools but they either require source code to build the extension or are not suitable in the case (I will provide detail later)

Mainly tried with 2 options:

1. vscode-extension-tester: https://github.com/redhat-developer/vscode-extension-tester But this needs to build the extension
2. code-server: https://github.com/coder/code-server This one allows to install and run extensions in a browser instance of VS Code and turns everything to web GUI testing. However, it doesn't guarantee full identical behaviors between the browser instance and an actual one.

Answer 1

I was wrong about the first method (using the vscode extension tester). Users can use .vsix artifacts as dependencies.

We can start with using the "helloworld" sample provided: https://github.com/redhat-developer/vscode-extension-tester/tree/main/sample-projects/helloworld-sample

Then modify "package.json", update the lines:

"install-vsix": "extest install-vsix -f {PATH_TO_VSIX} --extensions_dir .test-extensions", "ui-test": "extest setup-tests --extensions_dir .test-extensions && npm run install-vsix && extest run-tests './out/ui-test/*-test.js' --code_settings settings.json --extensions_dir .test-extensions" 

This allows users to work without building the extension. Then, all the work is about how to use the package. For more information, please refer to: https://github.com/redhat-developer/vscode-extension-tester/wiki