Private Gallery Creator

A command-line tool that generates a private extension gallery for Visual Studio from a folder of .vsix files.

Download the latest release

Why use this?

The Visual Studio Marketplace is great for public extensions, but sometimes you need to distribute extensions that should not be publicly listed. Common scenarios include:

• Internal tooling. Your team builds VS extensions for internal use (code generators, project templates, custom analyzers) and needs a central place to install and update them.
• Pre-release testing. You want to distribute beta builds of an extension to a test group before publishing to the Marketplace.
• Offline or restricted environments. Your development machines cannot reach the public Marketplace, but can access a shared network folder or internal web server.

Visual Studio has built-in support for private extension galleries, but you need to provide a valid ATOM feed that describes the available extensions. This tool generates that feed automatically by reading the metadata from your .vsix files.

Getting started

1. Set up a folder with your extensions

Create a folder and place the .vsix files you want to distribute inside it. Then add PrivateGalleryCreator.exe to the same folder.

2. Generate the feed

Double-click PrivateGalleryCreator.exe (or run it from the command line). It will:

1. Parse each .vsix file for metadata (name, version, author, description, etc.)
2. Extract extension icons into a hidden icons folder
3. Generate a feed.xml file in the same directory

Note: The icons folder is hidden. If you don't see it, that's expected. The feed will still work correctly.

3. Register the gallery in Visual Studio

Open Visual Studio and go to Tools > Options > Environment > Extensions. Add a new gallery with the absolute path to the feed.xml file. This can be a local path or a network share.

\\mycompany\extensions\feed.xml

The private gallery will now appear under the Online tab in the Extensions dialog (Extensions > Manage Extensions).

4. Keep it updated

Run PrivateGalleryCreator.exe again whenever you add, remove, or update a .vsix file. Or use the --watch option to regenerate the feed automatically on changes (see below).

Command-line options

All options can be combined. For example:

PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --input=C:\extensions --output=C:\feed\feed.xml --name="Team Extensions" --recursive --latest-only --terminate

--input

Sets the directory to scan for .vsix files. Defaults to the directory containing the exe.

PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --input=C:\your\extensions\folder

--output

Sets the output path for the generated feed file. Defaults to feed.xml in the input directory.

PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --output=C:\your\path\feed.xml

--name

Sets a custom gallery name. Defaults to "VSIX Gallery".

PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --name="My Team Gallery"

--recursive

Scans subdirectories for .vsix files in addition to the input directory.

PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --recursive

--latest-only

When multiple versions of the same extension are found, only the latest version is included in the feed. Useful when your folder retains previous versions.

PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --latest-only

--exclude

Skips any .vsix files whose full path contains the specified text.

PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --exclude=experimental

--source

Overrides the download URL used in the feed. By default, the feed references extensions relative to the feed file location. Use this option when the .vsix files will be served from a different location than where you run the tool.

PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --source=https://myserver.com/extensions/
PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --source=\\mycompany\shared\extensions\

--watch (-w)

Watches the input directory for changes to .vsix files and regenerates the feed automatically. The process runs continuously until you close the console or press Ctrl+C.

PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --watch

--terminate (-t)

Exits immediately after generating the feed. Without this option, the tool waits for a keypress before closing. Useful for scripts and CI pipelines.

PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --terminate

--version

Sets the target Visual Studio version for the feed. Defaults to 17.0. This affects how extension pack IDs are serialized in the feed. Valid values are 11.0 through 17.x.

PrivateGalleryCreator.exe --version=16.0

Tips

• Visual Studio auto-updates extensions from private galleries, just like it does for Marketplace extensions.
• The feed supports extensions targeting Visual Studio 2012 and newer.
• You can register a private gallery through a VS extension using a .pkgdef file. See this example.
• For CI/CD pipelines, combine --input, --output, --source, and --terminate to generate the feed as a build step.

License

Apache 2.0