The Tasks system in VSCode is quite powerful: https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/editor/tasks

Also, the integrated Terminal (Ctrl+`) is more useful with each version.

How do you (personally) use tasks? Do you bind a key to the "Run Task" command and then type the task name in? Doesn't that feel inefficient?

I'm just trying to get the edit/build/run cycle down. So far the "run" part is missing for me.

It varies on the language/project. I tend to set my Build Task (Ctrl+Shift+B) to the most useful task and F1 > Run task my way to the others. That doesn't feel much more inefficient than switching to an external terminal (though as the internal terminal with Ctrl+` gets better I may start using it more often).

The F5 debug support is great in Node and .NET Core and there are extensions to support other language debugging. (I've heard the Go and Rust ones in particular are great, though I don't work in either language myself.)

Apart from the built in task runner system, you can always use an extension that does a "classic" command-R.

I use https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=formulah... and bound it to exactly this key.

F5 is the default but you can set your own keyboard shortcuts from the File->Preferences->Keyboard Shortcuts menu

There appears to be no way to bind a keyboard shortcut for running an arbitrary task. https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/6550

By default F5 is "continue debugging," but debugging is limited to Node, so I don't think that's what I want.

Incidentally my MBP has no F5 key :)

There are debugging extensions for environments beyond Node.

Also, Ctrl+Shift+B is the default shortcut for whatever arbitrary task you have set as your Build Task in .vscode/tasks.json.

There are debug adapters for tons of languages available through extensions. I use the C++ and Python debuggers regularly and love them :)