Task Discovery Settings
Settings that control which tasks the extension finds and how it discovers them — including which files and directories to scan, how deeply to search, which task-type providers are active, and how shell-script tasks are identified.
Table of Contents
Defined Task Types Discovery Patterns
Each task type watches specific file patterns:
| Task Type | Patterns | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| npm/yarn/pnpm | **/package.json | Reads scripts section |
| Ant | **/*.xml | Parses build file targets |
| cake | **/*.cake | Cake build targets from Task("...") declarations |
| cargo-make | **/{Makefile.toml,*.toml} | Rust task runner from TOML files (requires Cargo) |
| Composer | **/composer.json | PHP dependency scripts |
| Gradle | **/*.gradle | Java/Android build tasks |
| Grunt | **/Gruntfile.js | Registered tasks |
| Gulp | **/gulpfile.{js,mjs} | Exported tasks |
| Just | **/{justfile,.justfile,*.just} | Command recipes |
| Jupyter | **/*.ipynb | Notebook cells (requires Jupyter Extension) |
| Make | **/Makefile | Build targets |
| Maven | **/pom.xml | Lifecycle goals |
| mise | **/mise.toml, **/mise.*.toml, **/mise.*.local.toml | TOML tasks and file tasks |
| MSBuild | **/*.{csproj,vbproj,sln} | .NET project targets |
| Pipenv | **/Pipfile | Python scripts |
| Poe the Poet | **/pyproject.toml | Python task runner |
| Poetry | **/pyproject.toml | Python scripts |
| Shell | **/*.{sh,bash,ps1,bat,cmd} | Executable scripts |
| Docker | **/Dockerfile* | Container builds |
| Docker Compose | **/docker-compose.yml | Service orchestration |
| GitHub Actions | **/.github/workflows/*.yml | CI/CD workflows |
| Visual Studio Code | **/.vscode/tasks.json, user-level tasks.json | Native Visual Studio Code tasks (workspace and user-level) |
| Workspace | .workspace-tasks.json | Custom tasks |
All patterns respect .gitignore and .tasksignore exclusions.
Next Steps
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| General | Exclusion patterns and discovery depth |
| Discovery | Task type providers and shell script detection |