EclipseFdn / EclipseFdn/open-vsx.org

Improve publishing guidelines for Open VSX

Open
#8,554 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
team:software-dev
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
394
Forks
145
Avg merge
2d 19h
Merged PRs (30d)
3

Description

Open VSX currently allows extensions to be published without repository, homepage, or issue tracker links. When these fields are provided, they are not validated for correctness or reachability.

As a result:

- Some extensions include missing, invalid, or private repository links.
- Users are unable to report issues or verify the origin of an extension.
- Invalid links may reduce trust or signal low-quality or potentially malicious content.
- The Open VSX team receives recurring support emails about broken or missing links.

This is not a violation of our current terms, but expectations are unclear and not formally documented.

## Proposal

1. **Document clear publishing guidelines**
- Define which metadata fields are required, recommended, or optional.
- Clarify expectations when links are provided (e.g. must resolve, must be publicly accessible, etc.).
- Explicitly document that repositories may be private, if that remains acceptable.
- Update moderation practices on https://www.eclipse.org/legal/compliance/dsa/#open-vsx-registry as needed

2. **Introduce lightweight validation**
- Warn publishers if provided URLs are malformed or unreachable at publish time.
- Do not block publication initially.

3. **Use metadata as a quality signal**
- Consider downranking extensions with missing or invalid metadata.
- Surface metadata completeness in the admin dashboard.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

Research direction

Start by reviewing the Open VSX publishing flow and the linked DSA moderation guidance. Define the required, recommended, and optional metadata expectations, then trace where URL warnings, metadata quality signals, and admin-dashboard completeness could fit. Done should include documented expectations and lightweight, non-blocking handling for malformed or unreachable links.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
api, backend, documentation
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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