Remote Development with Twingate SSH and VS Code

Set up VS Code for remote development over Twingate SSH.

This guide covers IDE setup for remote development over Twingate SSH. For an overview of how Twingate SSH works, including architecture, certificate authorities, and session recording, see Privileged Access for SSH.

Prerequisites

• The Twingate Client meeting the minimum version requirements is installed and running on your development machine.
• Privileged Access for SSH is set up, including:
  • A Gateway and Connector deployed in the same network as the target VM
  • An SSH Resource configured and accessible to your group

SSH config sync

Enable SSH Server Configuration Auto-Sync in the Twingate Client (under More) to sync the SSH CA’s public key to ~/.ssh/known_hosts. This lets your SSH client automatically trust certificates issued by the Gateway, avoiding Trust On First Use (TOFU) prompts. See User configuration for details.

VS Code Remote SSH

VS Code Remote SSH lets you open a folder on a remote machine and work on it as if it were local. With Twingate, the remote host is a private SSH Resource — no public IP, no VPN, no key files.

Connect to a remote host

• Open VS Code.
• Install the Remote - SSH extension if you haven’t already (ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh).
• Open the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P on macOS, Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows/Linux).
• Type Remote-SSH: Connect to Host and select it.
• Enter the address (or an alias) of the SSH Resource (e.g., 10.124.16.7 or my-server.int).
• VS Code opens a new window connected to the remote host. The first connection may take a few seconds as VS Code installs its server component on the remote VM.

Open a project

Once connected:

• Click Open Folder in the VS Code welcome screen.
• Navigate to your project directory on the remote VM.
• VS Code indexes the project and enables full IntelliSense, debugging, and terminal access.