New VS Code extensions this week: 28 September – 4 October 2026

TL;DR: 943 new extensions launched on the VS Code Marketplace from 28 September to 4 October 2026, close to the 965 of the week before. About a third mention AI, and Claude was named in 113 of them. Last week's launches have now had a full week: the typical one has 3 installs, and about 15% reached 10. If you launched recently, compare your first 7 days with those figures and with your category's row below.

How many new VS Code extensions launched this week#

943 new extensions went live on the Marketplace between Monday 28 September and Sunday 4 October 2026, from 852 publishers. We count each extension on the day of its first public release.

Two groups are left out of that count, as in last week's report. The first is 166 listings from three publishers that each released more than 20 extensions in the week (63, 54 and 49). The second is 4 listings whose whole description was a placeholder. With both groups included, the Marketplace recorded 1,113 new listings.

The weekly total has stayed between about 840 and 970 for six weeks:

Some of these figures differ from last week's table. We reported 906 launches for 21–27 September, and that is now 965, because new listings can take up to three days to appear in the catalog and Sunday's were still arriving. We also now apply the more-than-20 rule to every publisher in every week, which moved the earlier weeks slightly.

On Open VSX, 430 new listings appeared in the same week, 134 of them from two high-volume publishers. Open VSX is a separate registry, so we count it separately.

What kinds of extensions launched#

About a third of the week's new Marketplace extensions (322 of 943) mention AI in their name, description or tags. Last week it was 298 of 965.

Publishers choose their own categories, and an extension can have several, so this column adds up to more than 943:

253 launches used only "Other", down from 316 the week before. 177 of the 943 were also on Open VSX under the same ID.

How last week's launches did after 7 days#

The 965 launches of 21–27 September have now had a full week. We read each one's Marketplace install count 7 days after its release, and 929 had a reading on that day.

The typical launch (the median) had 3 installs, the same as the two weeks we measured before. 144 of them, about 15%, reached 10. So a handful of installs after your first week is normal.

The same categories did better again:

Launches with a specific category reached 10 installs more often than those left only in "Other": 18% against 10%. The table shows which launches did better, not why.

Last week we also set aside a wave of listings with placeholder descriptions such as "app". Of the 151 we now count, 146 are still listed, and the typical one has no installs.

Standout launches of the week#

It was another quiet week: 26 of the 943 new launches reached 20 installs by 5 October. Four categories had one that met the rules in the section below.

Earlier launches still climbing#

These launched between 14 and 27 September and gained installs on at least 6 of the 7 days to 5 October. They are ranked by installs gained in that week.

How last week's picks did#

All seven of last week's category picks are still listed, and each gained installs.

How we picked these#

These picks are not sponsored, and we haven't reviewed their code. The rules are the same as last week. An extension was eligible if it:

• was still listed on the Marketplace on 5 October,
• links a public source repository,
• has a real description, not a placeholder,
• comes from a publisher with fewer than 1 million installs across all its extensions and no more than 20 launches that week, and
• is not one of ours.

New launches also needed at least 20 installs, and none of them could have gained more than 500 installs in a single day, or most of its installs in one day with almost none after. Each one is listed under the first category its publisher chose. For the climbing list, gaining installs on 6 of 7 days does the same job.

What to check after your first week#

If you launched in the last two weeks, these checks use the figures above:

• Installs after 7 days: compare yours with the median of 3 and with your category's row. Reaching 10 puts you ahead of about 85% of launches.
• Category: if you are only in "Other", set the categories field in your extension manifest to one that fits.
• Display name: include the words people search for. Our keyword guide shows how to choose them.
• Open VSX downloads: a new listing there usually shows a few hundred downloads in its first week whatever it does, as last week's report showed. Compare later weeks with each other instead.
• Daily gains: look for installs arriving on most days, not in one jump. Every extension in the climbing list gained on all 7 days.

How we counted#

• Weeks run Monday to Sunday, in UTC.
• Marketplace launches are counted on the first public release date the Marketplace reports. New listings can take up to three days to appear in the catalog, so a week's count can still rise slightly after it ends. Open VSX launches are counted on the day VSXRank first saw them.
• Left out: listings whose whole description was "app", "First one" or empty, and any publisher with more than 20 launches in that week. Both rules apply to every week in this post.
• AI launches are those whose name, description or tags include words such as AI, LLM, agent, Claude, Copilot, MCP, Codex, Gemini, GPT, OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, Ollama or prompt. This is a word match, so it will miss some AI tools and include a few that only mention AI.
• Installs come from the Marketplace's public counter, which we read every day at 00:00 UTC. "After 7 days" is the reading 7 days after the release date. When the Marketplace showed no install figure for a listing, we counted 0. When we had no reading for that day (36 launches), we left the extension out.

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