How to automatically format Astro files in VS Code using Prettier

Find out how to use Prettier to format .astro files in VS Code

One downside of using Astro is that Prettier does not understand its syntax.

So auto-formatting on Save/Paste does not work in VS Code.

How can you automatically format Astro files in VS Code using Prettier?

To make it work we need to do some configuration.

First install the default formatter for Web Development, which is Prettier.

Prettier does not have a specific formatter for Astro.

So inside your project folder, install this plugin https://github.com/withastro/prettier-plugin-astro by running

npm install -D prettier-plugin-astro

Now make sure in the VS Code settings you have enabled Editor: Format On Save and Editor: Format On Paste.

Then when you save the file or paste code you should see it being formatted.

If it doesn’t work, make sure in VS Code you opened the specific project folder.

Not the project’s parent folder.

This might make the Astro formatter not work.