Is Quarto Installation needed for Preview if using Extension?

[c-westhoven]

Hi,

I'm switching over from R studio to Positron, and I want to use Quarto.
I have Quarto downloaded / enabled as an extension. But when I click on Preview (on both .Rmd and .qmd files), I get the pop up: Quarto installation not found. Please install the Quarto CLI before rendering documents.

Furthermore, I'm using ssh to connect to my institute server where my .Rmd and .qmd files are located, and I think that's where Positron may be looking for a Quarto install that doesn't exist.

The Quarto extension itself is installed and enabled both locally and on ssh.

In settings there's a Quarto: Path option. Is this supposed to be filled out?

from https://positron.posit.co/quarto.html, I'd understand that I don't need to set anything.

The Quarto extension is included as a bootstrapped extension in Positron. This means that it will behave just like you installed it yourself; this extension will update automatically when a new version is available on Open VSX and it can be uninstalled if desired.

I'd be grateful for any tips on how to solve this.
Thanks.

[juliasilge]

Thanks for sharing what you are running into here! Positron bundles Quarto, so it's surprising that you are seeing an error about no installation being found. Can you share a few things so we can clarify what might be going on?

• What OS and version of Positron are you using?
• Do you see text in the very bottom status bar telling you what version of Quarto you have?
• Can you try out working in a regular, non-remote-SSH session with a local Quarto file? You should be able to preview/render such a file with no problem.
• What happens if you run the command Quarto: Verify Installation?

[c-westhoven]

Hi @juliasilge ,

Thanks for your reply!

To answer your questions:
Positron Version: 2025.09.0 build 139
Code - OSS Version: 1.103.0
Commit: 30e3d0a
Date: 2025-08-29T18:31:36.739Z
Electron: 37.2.3
Chromium: 138.0.7204.100
Node.js: 22.17.0
V8: 13.8.500258-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.6.0

I don't see a quarto version in my status bar when ssh-connected.
--> when running Quarto: Verify Installation: Quarto installation not found

I do see a version when I am not connected; there I see Quarto: 1.8.24, and I am able to preview a qmd file there.
--> when running Quarto: Verify Installation Quarto version 1.8.24 installed at /Applications/quarto/bin

[juliasilge]

Thank you for sharing this! Our intention is that Positron bundles both the Quarto CLI and the Quarto extension but it turns out that the CLI bundling is not working correctly for remote SSH sessions. I have opened #9548 to track and prioritize a fix.

As a workaround for now, what you need to do is install the Quarto CLI on the server. We have some instructions here that should get you started:
https://docs.posit.co/resources/install-quarto.html

Just to reiterate, I believe the Quarto VS Code extension is correctly being bundled for you, but the Quarto CLI is not. We'll get this fixed!