Arch Linux User Repository

@ShayBox: For minimal changes, this package is based on https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/code/, which uses nodejs-lts-dubnium as a make dependency.

Using nodejs to build may work, but I haven't tried.

Using -bin package is not an option for this package since we have to apply the transparent patch to source code to make things work properly. Patching a compiled -bin package would make code continuously complain about corrupt installation(https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/FAQ#_installation-appears-to-be-corrupt-unsupported).

To your concern about building, here are two solutions:

Solution A:

Use devtools (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:Building_in_a_clean_chroot#Convenience_way) to build the package.

extra-x86_64-build (comes from devtools) will build the package in a clean environment, without bothering your local packages.

Solution B:

Use archlinuxcn repo (https://github.com/archlinuxcn/repo).

I've added code-transparent to archlinuxcn repo. You can install code-transparent with the prebuilt package from archlinuxcn repo.

I love the transparency patches, and I know this is also a problem with the original code package, but unfortunately this just isn't compilable, because it uses nodejs-lts-dubnium instead of nodejs, and because they conflict, I can't install nodejs-lts-dubnium even temporarily to build it, a ton of packages use nodejs as a dependency, and to uninstall nodejs I would have to remove a lot of other packages, you're either going to have to provide some binary source like a -bin package, or an arch repository, or get it to build with nodejs instead of nodejs-lts-dubnium, I haven't tested it, so it may compile.
Ultimately the code's PKGBUILD isn't very good, it uses the wrong nodejs, uses both npm and yarn, python2, and electron4.
I guess the easiest option would be a bin package, that's what all the other aur packages have chosen.