CodeAlign

Universal text alignment for VS Code - variables, operators, comments, tables and more, in any language or file format.

Features

Installation

Ctrl+Shift+X → search CodeAlign → Install.

Usage

• With selection: select lines → Ctrl+Alt+A (auto-detect) or right-click → CodeAlign submenu.
• Without selection: Ctrl+Alt+A aligns the entire file.
• Folder: right-click a folder in the Explorer → Align All Files in Folder.
• Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P → type CodeAlign to see all commands.

Commands

Keyboard Shortcuts

Rebind anything via Ctrl+K Ctrl+S → search CodeAlign.

Configuration

File > Preferences > Settings → search CodeAlign, or edit settings.json directly.

General

Available separators (multi-char must come before single-char):

:=  =>  ->  <-  !=  ==  =  :  |  ,

Auto-align

Auto-align uses codealign.separators - no separate list needed.

Profiles & language auto-detection

Define named presets in codealign.profiles. Each profile overrides separators, minimumSpacesBefore, and minimumSpacesAfter.

Switch manually with Switch Profile, or automatically by language using codealign.languageProfiles:

"codealign.profiles": {
  "Python": { "separators": ["=", ":"], "minimumSpacesBefore": 1 },
  "YAML":   { "separators": [":"],      "minimumSpacesBefore": 0 },
  "Tables": { "separators": ["|", ","] }
},
"codealign.languageProfiles": {
  "python": "Python",
  "yaml":   "YAML"
}

The active profile is shown in the status bar. languageProfiles only applies when no profile is manually set.

Complete settings.json example

{
  // -- Spacing
  "codealign.minimumSpacesBefore": 1,
  "codealign.minimumSpacesAfter":  1,

  // -- Separators (single source of truth for all alignment operations)
  "codealign.separators":              ["=>", "=", ":", "|"],
  "codealign.commentSeparators":       ["//", "#", "--", ";"],
  "codealign.commentMinSpaces":        2,
  "codealign.separatorOccurrence":     1,
  "codealign.smartDetectionThreshold": 0.5,

  // -- Paste & exclusions
  "codealign.pasteAlign.enabled":  true,
  "codealign.excludedLanguages":   [],

  // -- Auto-align (uses codealign.separators)
  "codealign.autoAlign.enabled":    true,
  "codealign.autoAlign.trigger":    "onSave",
  "codealign.autoAlign.debounceMs": 400,

  // -- UI
  "codealign.smartAlign.multiPass":     false,
  "codealign.livePreview.enabled":      false,
  "codealign.columnIndicator.enabled":  true,

  // -- Profiles 
  "codealign.activeProfile": "",
  "codealign.profiles": {
    "Python":   { "separators": ["=", ":"], "minimumSpacesBefore": 1, "minimumSpacesAfter": 1 },
    "YAML":     { "separators": [":"],      "minimumSpacesBefore": 0, "minimumSpacesAfter": 1 },
    "Markdown": { "separators": ["|", ","], "minimumSpacesBefore": 1, "minimumSpacesAfter": 1 },
    "Go":       { "separators": [":=", "="] }
  },

  // -- Language auto-profile 
  "codealign.languageProfiles": {
    "python":   "Python",
    "yaml":     "YAML",
    "go":       "Go",
    "markdown": "Markdown"
  }
}

Examples

Variable assignments

// Before
const name = "John";
const age = 30;
const city = "New York";

// After - Align Smart (=)
const name = "John";
const age  = 30;
const city = "New York";

YAML / config

# Before
host: localhost
port: 5432
database: mydb

# After - Align by :
host     : localhost
port     : 5432
database : mydb

Sort & Align

// Before (selected, Sort A→Z + align)
const zebra = 3;
const apple = 1;
const mango = 2;

// After
const apple = 1;
const mango = 2;
const zebra = 3;

Format as Table

// Before (CSV or pipe-separated, 2+ lines selected)
Name, Age, City
Alice, 30, Paris
Bob, 25, London

// After - Format as Table
| Name  | Age | City   |
| ----- | --- | ------ |
| Alice | 30  | Paris  |
| Bob   | 25  | London |

Align by Regex

-- Pattern: \s+AS\s+
SELECT user_id AS id, email_address AS email, created_at AS created
-- becomes:
SELECT user_id       AS id,
       email_address AS email,
       created_at    AS created

Git-diff aware

Only the group containing your modified lines gets aligned. Code you didn't touch is not reformatted - no noisy diffs.

Align to Column

# Target column: 40
x = 1               # short var
very_long_name = 2  # long var

# After - both separators at column 40
x              = 1               # short var
very_long_name = 2               # long var

Inline comments

# Before
name = "John"  # user name
age = 30  # age
city = "NYC"  # location

# After - Align Inline Comments
name = "John"  # user name
age  = 30      # age
city = "NYC"   # location

Unalign

Collapses aligned spaces back to the configured minimum - useful before re-aligning with a different separator or to keep diffs clean.

Alignment rules

• Groups: consecutive lines, same indentation, same separator. Blank lines and indent changes are boundaries. Minimum 2 lines to align.
• Strings: separators inside '...' or "..." are ignored.
• Comments: separators inside comment tails are ignored.
• Parentheses: = inside (...) is ignored (for-loops, default params).
• Compound operators: +=, -=, *=, /=, %=, &=, |=, ^=, ~=, ??= are never broken.
• Mixed indent: tabs and spaces are normalised using the editor's tabSize for grouping; actual characters are preserved.
• Code fences: content inside ``` and ~~~ blocks is never modified - syntax is preserved as-is.
• Markdown tables: Ctrl+Alt+A on pipe-separated lines auto-formats column widths instead of aligning on | - even when = appears inside cells.

Why doesn't Ctrl+Alt+A change anything?

CodeAlign does nothing rather than risk breaking your file's syntax when no separator is detected clearly enough above the threshold. This is intentional - a false alignment can introduce syntax errors in code files.

What to do:

• Select a specific block instead of the entire file - alignment works on targeted sections
• Lower codealign.smartDetectionThreshold (e.g. 0.2) if your block has few lines
• Use Align by… (right-click → CodeAlign) to force a specific separator
• Use Format as Table for Markdown tables instead of Align Smart

Supported languages

Works on any file VS Code can open as text. Tested with Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Rust, Go, C, C++, Java, Lua, PHP, Ruby, Swift, Kotlin, Bash, PowerShell, SQL, HTML, CSS, SCSS, JSON, YAML, TOML, XML, Markdown, Dockerfile, .env, and plain text.

Contributing

Bug reports and feature requests welcome - github.com/r-seize/CodeAlign/issues. Include the text you were aligning and the result you expected.