Tomcat Manager for VS Code

A VS Code extension for managing multiple Apache Tomcat servers from the command palette or from Run and Debug view. Define your servers once, bind them to workspaces, and run/stop/deploy without leaving the editor.

What it does

• Run / Stop / Restart any configured Tomcat instance
• Deploy WAR files - automatically found in target/, build/libs/, or dist/
• Clean a server's work/, temp/, and webapps/ directories (stops it first if running)
• Per-project overrides for CATALINA_OPTS and JAVA_OPTS via launch.json
• Native VS Code Settings UI with schema validation and autocomplete

Configuration

Server definitions go in User Settings (shared across all projects), while project-specific settings go in .vscode/launch.json.

User Settings — server definitions

{
  "tomcatManager.servers": [
    {
      "id": "tomcat9",
      "name": "Tomcat 9",
      "tomcatHome": "/opt/tomcat9",
      "jdkHome": "/usr/lib/jvm/java-11",
      "defaultCatalinaOpts": "-Xms256m"
    }
  ]
}

.vscode/launch.json — project binding + options

{
  "configurations": [
    {
      "type": "tomcat",
      "request": "launch",
      "name": "Run Tomcat",
      "serverId": "tomcat9",
      "catalinaOpts": "-Xmx1g",
      "javaOpts": "-Denv=dev"
    }
  ]
}

The server's defaultCatalinaOpts is prepended to the launch config catalinaOpts, so the effective value above would be -Xms256m -Xmx1g. Same for javaOpts.

If only one server is configured, serverId can be omitted — it auto-selects.

Commands

All available via Ctrl+Shift+P:

Command	What it does
Tomcat: Run	Start the server
Tomcat: Stop	Stop the server
Tomcat: Restart	Stop + start
Tomcat: Deploy	Copy a WAR to webapps/
Tomcat: Clean	Clear work/, temp/, and webapps/
Tomcat: Configure Servers	Open Tomcat settings

Building & Installing

See INSTALL.md.

License

EPL-2.0