I know that people who are completely new to VS Code, Git, Docker, FHIR, and other tools can sometimes struggle with setting up the environment. So I decided to write an article that walks through the entire setup process step by step to make it easier to get started.

I’d really appreciate it if you could leave a comment at the end - let me know if the instructions were clear, if anything was missing, or if there’s anything else you'd find helpful.

The setup includes:

✅ VS Code – Code editor
✅ Git – Version control system
✅ Docker – Runs an instance of IRIS for Health Community
✅ VS Code REST Client Extension – For running FHIR API queries
✅ Python – For writing FHIR-based scripts
✅ Jupyter Notebooks – For AI and FHIR assignments

Before you begin: Ensure you have administrator privileges on your system.

In addition to reading the guide, you can also follow the steps in the videos:

For Windows

https://www.youtube.com/embed/IyvuHbxCwCY
[This is an embedded link, but you cannot view embedded content directly on the site because you have declined the cookies necessary to access it. To view embedded content, you would need to accept all cookies in your Cookies Settings]

Are you using Jupyter Notebooks with IRIS? Are you using the vscode-iris-jupyter-server VS Code extension for your notebooking? If so, please let me know either via direct message or with a comment on this post. I'd like to hear more about how our customers are working with tool specifically, and with data science more generally.

Thanks!

To VSCode experts - see the screenshot. When right-click on a method with intentions to proceed to the source code:

I am always confused about what to choose: declaration or definition. What is the difference?

I was using VSCode to edit a DTL because it seemed easier to copy/paste code from parts of the DTL I was editing. I tried to add <sql> tag and code to call a SELECT statement, but when I compiled I got the following error...

ERROR <Ens>ErrInvalidDTL: Invalid DTL

> ERROR #5490: Error running generator for method 'GetSourceDocType:osuwmc.Epic.MFN.DTL.EpicMFN949002Normalization'

Have you ever been editing files in VS Code, but needed to check a global value or run a few ObjectScript commands? Now you can, with no setup required! If you have vscode-objectscript extension version 2.10.0 or later and are connected to InterSystems IRIS 2023.2 or later, you can now open a terminal connection to your server, regardless of where it's located.

There are three ways to open this new terminal:

Visual Studio Code releases new updates every month with new features and bug fixes, and the February 2025 release is now available.

There have been enhancements to GitHub Copilot with predictive editing, autonomous task completion, smarter code search, improved terminal and notebook support, and UI and workflow refinements.

ISCLOGs are a useful debugging tool provided with IRIS that can help you troubleshoot many different issues. For more information about creating these logs, please see the following IRIS documentation: "Logging".

Hi Community,

Watch this short exercise in writing basic code snippets in InterSystems ObjectScript using Copilot in VSCode and the GPT-4.0 engine. This screencast covers "Hello, World," global manipulation, class creation, and building a simple REST API application.

>> Coding InterSystems ObjectScript with Copilot <<

🗣 Presenter: @Evgeny Shvarov, Senior Manager of Developer and Startup Programs, InterSystems

📌 The related code can be found here: objectscript-copilot-demo.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/CanxHvMZyLY
[This is an embedded link, but you cannot view embedded content directly on the site because you have declined the cookies necessary to access it. To view embedded content, you would need to accept all cookies in your Cookies Settings]

Hi All,

In my DB, it has more than 10,000 files. I tried to search for a particular file (mac), but there is no search option to find it. Can you help me find that option to search for a file?

When debugging a routine in vscode which requires input to a READ, there doesn't appear to be any way to enter the input. If the routine is running in a terminal with vscode attached then input can be done there, but can it be done with no attached process?

Just curious what the process is for debugging either a .py file that is uploaded to a specific namespace/location or a python classmethod defined in a .cls file.

My method can be run via the "Debug" breadcrumb but it doesnt hit breakpoints it just runs without a debugger. Also objectscript methods debug correctly

Overview

After having some discussions at Global Summit and using a lot of package managers in my day to day development (npm,nuget,Chocolatey, etc) in addition to recently using the InterSystems Package Manager for some CICD process I'm building using Intersystems IRIS and IRIS 4 Health, I wanted an easy and integrated way to search/view/install packages related to the Intersystems tech stack.

Windows 10/Windows Server 2016:

I am currently monitoring our license use with a new rest-service I am implementing when I noticed my licenses on my instance being consumed and never released by Visual Studio Code.

I have VS Code with extensions connected to IRIS for Health. One top-level ObjectScript package is not displayed in the workspace for this namespace. This package exists in the namespace and is visible in SMP. If I create a new class with a different top-level package name (package that didn't previously exist) it will immediately appear in the workspace.

Is there any debug logging I can enable to look for errors or do any other troubleshooting?

Forgot to mention: the missing package is custom, not a system package.