Search Performance Tuning#

By default, VSCode follows symbolic links during global searches. If your project contains complex symlink structures (like those found in pnpm or local package linking), this can lead to duplicate results or infinite recursion.

1. Disable Symlink Search#

You can disable this via the UI or by editing your settings.json.

Method A: JSON Settings (Recommended)#

1. Open your Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P or Ctrl+Shift+P).
2. Type “Open User Settings (JSON)”.
3. Add or modify the following line:

{
    "search.followSymlinks": false
}

Method B: Settings UI#

1. Open Settings (Cmd+, or Ctrl+,).
2. Search for followSymlinks.
3. Uncheck the box under Search: Follow Symlinks.

2. Complementary Search Exclusions#

To further speed up your workspace, ensure you are ignoring heavy directories that don’t need indexing.

{
    "search.exclude": {
        "**/node_modules": true,
        "**/bower_components": true,
        "**/*.code-search": true,
        "**/dist": true,
        "**/build": true
    },
    "search.useIgnoreFiles": true,
    "search.useGlobalIgnoreFiles": true
}

If you are using VSCodium, ensure you have also disabled telemetry to keep your environment lean:

"telemetry.enableTelemetry": false,
"telemetry.enableCrashReporter": false