What's new
You can now SSH into any Databricks cluster without leaving VS Code. A new Clusters panel appears in the CatalystOps sidebar listing all your workspace clusters and their current status.
Click the SSH button next to any cluster. If the cluster is stopped, CatalystOps starts it for you and waits until it's ready. Once it's running, VS Code Remote SSH opens automatically — you're dropped into a full remote environment on the cluster driver.
If anything needs fixing first (like the cluster's access mode or Spark version), CatalystOps will tell you what's wrong and offer to fix it with a single click.
You'll need the VS Code Remote SSH extension and Databricks CLI ≥ 0.269 installed. CatalystOps checks both and will prompt you if either is missing.
What you can do once connected
Once you're in, VS Code is running directly on the cluster driver. That means:
- Open and edit notebooks and scripts on the cluster's filesystem
- Use the integrated terminal with full access to the Spark environment
- Run Python with the cluster's libraries and configurations already loaded
- Debug code with the VS Code debugger attached to the remote environment
Getting started
- Make sure CatalystOps and Remote SSH are installed
- Open the CatalystOps sidebar — look for the Clusters panel
- Click the SSH button next to the cluster you want to connect to
- VS Code will handle the rest and open a new remote window
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