With $name or ${name:default}, you can insert the value of a variable. When a variable isn't set, its default or the empty string is inserted. When a variable is unknown (that is, its name isn't defined) the name of the variable is inserted and it is transformed into a placeholder.

The following variables can be used:

• TM_SELECTED_TEXT The currently selected text or the empty string
• TM_CURRENT_LINE The contents of the current line
• TM_CURRENT_WORD The contents of the word under cursor or the empty string
• TM_LINE_INDEX The zero-index based line number
• TM_LINE_NUMBER The one-index based line number
• TM_FILENAME The filename of the current document
• TM_FILENAME_BASE The filename of the current document without its extensions
• TM_DIRECTORY The directory of the current document
• TM_FILEPATH The full file path of the current document
• CLIPBOARDThe contents of your clipboard
• WORKSPACE_NAME The name of the opened workspace or folder

For inserting the current date and time:

• CURRENT_YEAR The current year
• CURRENT_YEAR_SHORT The current year's last two digits
• CURRENT_MONTH The month as two digits (example '02')
  *CURRENT_MONTH_NAME The full name of the month (example 'July')
  *CURRENT_MONTH_NAME_SHORT The short name of the month (example 'Jul')
• CURRENT_DATE The day of the month
• CURRENT_DAY_NAME The name of day (example 'Monday')
• CURRENT_DAY_NAME_SHORT The short name of the day (example 'Mon')
• CURRENT_HOUR The current hour in 24-hour clock format
• CURRENT_MINUTE The current minute
• CURRENT_SECOND The current second
• CURRENT_SECONDS_UNIX The number of seconds since the Unix epoch

For inserting line or block comments, honoring the current language:

• LINE_COMMENT Example output: in PHP//

The snippet below inserts /* Hello World */ in JavaScript files and

<!-- Hello World -->

in HTML files:

{
  "hello": {
    "scope": "javascript,html",
    "prefix": "hello",
    "body": "$BLOCK_COMMENT_START Hello World $BLOCK_COMMENT_END"
  }
}

More-->https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/userdefinedsnippets