How to make a local application available on the web with Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code allows you to make a local application available on the web using a feature called “port forwarding”.

All you need to do is follow these steps:

1. Open the current folder in Terminal (Ctrl + `)
2. Start your server or run your build process and note down the port number
3. Go to ports, add port and request forward
4. Open the context menu and set visibility to public
5. Copy the URL and you’re live - you can now send this URL to others to help you debug
6. Deleting the port forward also makes the URL inactive

This is a an excellent way to temporalily share your app with the world without having to use a tunnel service like ngrok. Just be aware that you are effectively making your local machine available web-wide and thus also vulnerable to attacks. As a quick means to debug an app or show it to others for review, this is excellent but it should not be used as a way to publish your app to users.