How to enter text in command palette in VSCode extension

Question

I am writing a vscode extension. I use the following code to enter text in the TextEditor area.

function insertText(params: string) {
  var editor = vscode.window.activeTextEditor;
  editor.edit(edit =>
    editor.selections.forEach(selection => {
      edit.delete(selection);
      edit.insert(selection.start, params);
    })
  );
}

BUT, what I need my extension to be able to enter text in areas like:

• command palette
• input area when I press Ctrl+G (for workbench.action.gotoLine command)

instead of asking for user input.

---

tl;dr

pseudocode for what I am asking:

openCommandPallete();
enterTextInCommandPallete("ABCDEF");

Answer 1

You can call the quickOpen command with an argument to pre-fill the text:

vscode.commands.executeCommand("workbench.action.quickOpen", "Hello World");

You can switch to the command palette by prefixing the text with >. The full list of possible prefixes for quick open can be checked with ?:

As you can see here, : is the prefix for "Go to Line", so that works with the same command:

vscode.commands.executeCommand("workbench.action.quickOpen", ":5");

There's a related question that deals with how to utilize arguments for quick open in keybindings here.