Introduction to Allow
Learn how Allow vets and deploys Visual Studio Code extension allowlists.
What Allow does
Allow manages allowlists for Visual Studio Code extensions. It vets each extension, keeps approved versions under observation, and publishes the allowed set for enforcement through your existing management tools.
An extension can have one of five customer-facing states:
- Allowed — the vetted version is included in the published allowlist.
- Queued — vetting is waiting to start or needs to be run again.
- Vetting — analysis is running now.
- Blocked — the analysis found evidence that prevents the extension from being allowed.
- Cannot vet — the available analysis was not complete enough to allow the extension.
Queued, Vetting, Blocked, and Cannot vet entries are not published as allowed extensions.
The workflow
- An owner or administrator adds an extension, or a member submits a request.
- Allow runs the automated vetting pipeline.
- An Allowed result enters the selected allowlist. Other results stay out.
- Owners and administrators deploy the published list through Intune, Jamf, or the generated feed files.
- Allow monitors new extension versions and vets them before advancing the allowed version.
Allow does not install an endpoint agent and does not replace your device-management platform.
Next steps
Start with Create your account, then learn how the workspace's default allowlist works.