Google Colab is Coming to VS Code

Source: Google Developers Blog

Announcement

Nov 13, 2025

Authors

• Kevin Eger – Senior Software Engineer, Google Colab
• Ashley Toney – Senior Software Engineer, Google Colab

Today we are incredibly excited to announce the launch of the new Google Colab extension for Visual Studio Code. This work is the culmination of two key trends that have become apparent in the last few years.

1. VS Code is one of the world’s most popular and beloved code editors—fast, lightweight, and infinitely adaptable.
2. Colab has become the go‑to platform for millions of AI/ML developers, students, and researchers, offering simple notebook execution, collaboration, and seamless access to powerful compute resources like GPUs and TPUs.

Until now, these two worlds have been mostly separate. Users built custom VS Code environments for project development and used web‑based Colab notebooks for execution, visualization, and training/inference workloads. Community demand for a tighter integration—evident in blog posts, forum threads, and popular GitHub workarounds—made it clear that developers want the power and simplicity of Colab inside the VS Code editor they already use.

Our objective at Colab is to meet developers, students, and researchers where they are, and for many of them that’s in VS Code. That’s why we’re now releasing the official Colab VS Code extension.

🤝 The Best of Both Worlds

The new Colab VS Code extension combines the strengths of both platforms:

• For VS Code Users: Continue using the editor you’re familiar with while connecting local notebooks to high‑powered Colab runtimes, including Pro‑tier runtimes with premium GPUs and TPUs.
• For Colab Users: The integration supports common workflows where notebooks belong to larger projects or Git repositories. It brings powerful IDE features and extensibility to the simple, provisionable Colab runtimes you already love.

🚀 Getting Started with the Colab Extension

1. Install the Colab Extension

1. In VS Code, open the Extensions view from the Activity Bar on the left (or press Ctrl|Cmd+Shift+X).
2. Search the marketplace for Google Colab.
3. Click Install on the official Colab extension.
4. If prompted, install the required dependency – Jupyter.

2. Connect to a Colab Runtime

1. Create or open any .ipynb notebook file in your local workspace.
2. Run a cell (which drops you into kernel selection) or click the Select Kernel button in the top right.
3. Choose Colab, select your desired runtime, sign in with your Google account, and you’re all set.

Your local notebook is now powered by a Colab runtime!

For VS Code derivatives, the extension is also published to Open VSX.

What’s Next

This project is a launchpad for bringing the best of Google Colab’s functionality to users everywhere, and we’re just getting started. Future plans include adding even more Colab features to VS Code.

We are thrilled to finally bring these two platforms together. Download the extension from the VS Code Marketplace today, give it a try, and let us know what you think on:

• GitHub Issues
• X (formerly Twitter)

Happy coding!