What is Visual Studio Live Share?
Welcome to Visual Studio Live Share! Live Share enables you to collaboratively edit and debug with others in real time, regardless of the programming languages you're using or app types you're building. You can instantly and securely share your current project, start a joint debugging session, share terminal instances, forward localhost web apps, have voice calls, and more!
Unlike traditional pair programming, Visual Studio Live Share allows developers to work together, while retaining their personal editor preferences (e.g. theme, keybindings), as well as having their own cursor. This allows you to seamlessly transition between following one another, and being able to explore ideas/tasks on your own. This ability to work together and independently provides a collaboration experience that feels much like in-person collaboration.
Live Share is built using revolutionary architecture and concepts that manifest as powerful features for our users. To learn about those features, see Live Share features.
There are many use cases for Visual Studio Live Share. Learn more in Common use cases for Live Share.
Tip
Did you know that you can now join a Live Share session from the browser? This means, you no longer need to install a desktop client to collaborate! Just click on the link shared with you and you can get a full-fidelity VS Code editor experience in the browser. Learn more here.
Get started
Ready to get going? In this article we'll run you through some concepts and how to install the needed extensions. If you're looking for an abridged version, check out the quickstarts.
- Install and collaborate: Visual Studio Code steps | Visual Studio steps
- Quickstart: Share your first project
- Quickstart: Join your first session