title: Building a tool to leverage the Language Server Protocol in general and VSCode's ~/.vscode/extensions as a server launch mechanism in particular
body: <p>I am developing a free software code coverage tool that leverages LSP. I do not want to reinvent the wheel in order to specify and launch a particular language server. What seems to make sense is to use VSCode to obtain the LS extension from the marketplace which will establish an entry in ~/.vscode/extensions. Once I have the extension on my computer I would use it to launch the LS much as VSCode does.</p>
  <p>So now I need to grok this extension format to develop a launcher inside my tool. I am looking for specs, examples, tutorials, code or other material that will help, especially from other developers who have done this already.</p>
  <p>I am already quite familiar with the LSP spec and some Microsoft VSCode sites and articles, fwiw.</p>
  <p>Perhaps a link to the VSCode source where it leverages an extension to launch a language server would be helpful.</p>