Added support for Default connection (#18912) #19870

yorek · 2025-08-02T23:07:35Z

Description

Added support for a workspace default connection as requested in #18912. The default connection is saved in the defaultConnectionName setting:

{
    "mssql.defaultConnectionName": "YourConnectionProfileName"
}

Instead of specifying server name and database (as proposed in the related issue) the setting expect to have the name of the connection profile that should be used as default connection, to make it coherent with the overall connection behavior.

Code Changes Checklist

New or updated unit tests added
All existing tests pass (npm run test)
Code follows contributing guidelines
Telemetry/logging updated if relevant
No regressions or UX breakage

Reviewers: Please read our reviewer guidelines

sggoose · 2025-08-04T13:15:43Z

Been hoping this could be a feature! Would you be able to modify this to always set the default connection to the last manually connected profile in a workspace? This would most accurately reflect the default connection behavior of SSMS in my opinion.

yorek · 2025-08-04T18:02:06Z

Been hoping this could be a feature! Would you be able to modify this to always set the default connection to the last manually connected profile in a workspace? This would most accurately reflect the default connection behavior of SSMS in my opinion.

That could be set as an option that can be turned on or off. Together with a right-click menu on a connection to make it as default. Let's have this first improvement done and then we can do this other two in the next, so that we move swiftly forward

yorek · 2025-08-05T17:54:16Z

I have added the context menu item to set a connection as default for the Workspace, to make the UX better

Benjin · 2025-08-05T19:12:42Z

An interesting thought; we'll discuss taking this. Not knowing if we will end up pulling this in, I'll still leave some PR comments to make it more merge-ready if we do.

kburtram

Overall, this looks like a solid change. Just a note that changes to the Object Explorer context menu usually require some UX consideration, as we're aiming to keep that menu focused on the most frequently used command.

kburtram · 2025-08-06T00:56:02Z

package.json

@@ -443,6 +443,11 @@
                    "when": "view == objectExplorer && !config.mssql.useLegacyConnectionExperience && viewItem =~ /\\btype=(disconnectedServer|Server)\\b/",
                    "group": "1_MSSQL_serverAndDbManagement@2"
                },
+                {
+                    "command": "mssql.setAsWorkspaceDefault",


I'm not sure this command is common enough to justify adding it to the Server node's context menu in Object Explorer. Since there are already quite a few server/database commands, adding more could clutter the menu. An alternative UX might be to expose this via the command palette, using a quick pick menu to select the server.

We could also reorganize the our menu items now that VS Code supports contributing submenus. We may want to do that eventually anyway as we bring in more functionality from ADS.

Yes, we’ll likely need to reorganize our context menus as we introduce more commands. That said, we should continue to keep the menus focused on the most frequently used actions, and move less common commands to the Command Palette to reduce clutter and keep the UI clean.

Benjin · 2025-08-05T19:13:37Z

package.json

@@ -1224,6 +1235,11 @@
                    "description": "%mssql.maxRecentConnections%",
                    "scope": "window"
                },
+                "mssql.defaultConnectionName": {
+                    "type": "string",
+                    "description": "Name of the default connection profile to use when executing queries without an active connection. This should match the name of a saved connection profile.",


the default connection should be the ID (a GUID), not the profileName. Saved connections are not guaranteed to have a user-specified profile name.

mssql.defaultConnectionId would therefore be a better config value.

while I understand the ratio behind this request, using an ID make the settings.json less human-friendly. If I want to see what is the default connection by opening settings.json and then I just see an ID, that doesn't help much. Any idea on how to make this better while still human friendly? Are names unique or they can be duplicated?

May I can make a change to have the default connection highlighted in bold to improve the UI

Apparently bold is not possible, so I added the "(default)" description.

src/controllers/connectionManager.ts

Benjin · 2025-08-05T19:20:00Z

src/controllers/mainController.ts

+
+        Utils.logDebug(`Not connected, trying default connection`);
+        // Try to connect with default connection from configuration
+        const defaultConnectionResult = await this._connectionMgr.connectWithDefaultConnection(uri);


Does this work with other the automatic connection selection mechanisms we already have? i.e. if you have a connection selected in the Object Explorer, that connection is selected; if you already have a connected SQL file and open another one, that connection is copied to the new file.

At the moment if I have a connection selected in the object explorer I'm still asked to pick a connection when I try to run a query, if the opened .sql files isn't connected to a server yet. The default connection will be used only if the .sql doesn't have an active connection already

Benjin · 2025-08-06T01:32:59Z

package.json

@@ -443,6 +443,11 @@
                    "when": "view == objectExplorer && !config.mssql.useLegacyConnectionExperience && viewItem =~ /\\btype=(disconnectedServer|Server)\\b/",
                    "group": "1_MSSQL_serverAndDbManagement@2"
                },
+                {
+                    "command": "mssql.setAsWorkspaceDefault",


We could also reorganize the our menu items now that VS Code supports contributing submenus. We may want to do that eventually anyway as we bring in more functionality from ADS.

yorek added 4 commits August 2, 2025 15:15

first attempt

fb2d754

correctly implemented localization

760ef90

localization files

b16f7e8

removed unneded file

2bf3ca3

yorek requested review from kburtram, aasimkhan30, caohai, laurenastrid1, lewis-sanchez and Benjin as code owners August 2, 2025 23:07

yorek added 2 commits August 2, 2025 16:23

fixed test

cec852c

better uri spec

df8c008

yorek added 2 commits August 5, 2025 10:52

added context menu to set default Workspace connection

1a144ea

localized strings

c8e692d

kburtram reviewed Aug 6, 2025

View reviewed changes

Benjin requested changes Aug 6, 2025

View reviewed changes

yorek added 7 commits August 16, 2025 15:29

moved to use Id instead of Name

4b962e0

localization updates

3363e10

added "default" description for default connections

8b7f8cb

made sure default connection indication is shown even if no .sql is open

091510f

consolidated code

f002c36

fixed test issue

36933a4

Merge branch 'main' into default-connection-main-merged

0a776a5

yorek requested a review from allancascante as a code owner August 19, 2025 18:11

Merge branch 'main' into default-connection

c9864e6

Added support for Default connection (#18912) #19870

Are you sure you want to change the base?

Added support for Default connection (#18912) #19870

Uh oh!

Conversation

yorek commented Aug 2, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Description

Code Changes Checklist

Reviewers: Please read our reviewer guidelines

Uh oh!

sggoose commented Aug 4, 2025

Uh oh!

yorek commented Aug 4, 2025

Uh oh!

yorek commented Aug 5, 2025

Uh oh!

Benjin commented Aug 5, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

kburtram left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

yorek Aug 16, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

yorek commented Aug 2, 2025 •

edited

Loading

Benjin commented Aug 5, 2025 •

edited

Loading

yorek Aug 16, 2025 •

edited

Loading