running an existing WordPress site from Visual Studio Code?

I’ve been handrolling, but XAMPP is pretty common. And yes, if you’re going to edit the site, you’ll want the vs code php extension. The wordpress install should probably come in with the site, but if not, it’s very simple. I’m assuming you have the database, because if you don’t, you don’t really have the site at all. This is where you start:

https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/getting-started/setting-up-a-development-environment/