A "VS file" usually designates a `.vs` extension, but because people also use "VS" to mean Visual Studio’s `.vs` folder, interpretation relies on context; if it’s truly a `.vs` file, it’s commonly a vertex shader script written in plain text for rendering, readable in editors like VS Code, and may look like HLSL with `float4x4` and semantics such as `SV_Position`, or GLSL with `#version` shaping `gl_Position`.

Because the `.vs` extension can be reused by many programs, a `.vs` file may be plain text or binary depending on the software, and if it appears unreadable the right approach is checking what created it; but a folder named `.vs` next to a `.sln` file is Visual Studio’s cache directory containing indexes, not actual source files, and should be excluded from Git, with deletion generally safe since Visual Studio rebuilds it—though this resets local preferences such as open file lists.

".vs" can mean something else because file extensions are not globally coordinated, and Windows uses them mainly for launch associations rather than meaning, allowing developers to repurpose `. Here's more regarding best app to open VS files take a look at the site. vs` for unrelated tasks, which is why not every `.vs` file will be a vertex shader even though that usage is well-known in graphics; a different tool could assign `.vs` to its project bundle, and Windows would still show it as a generic "VS file" unless a program registers ownership.

A `.vs` file can also be "something else" because context affects the meaning; in rendering projects `.vs` is often understood as a vertex shader due to its association with other shader files and build steps, yet other workflows reuse `.vs` for readable config or script files containing XML text unrelated to HLSL/GLSL, and some `.vs` files are binary, appearing garbled since they’re compiled assets or caches, so you learn the truth from where the file came from and what program handles it correctly.

If you want a quick way to confirm what your particular `.vs` means, the fastest method is to treat the extension as a clue and verify it by evidence: check the folder context and neighboring files, review the file properties for "Opens with," and open it in a text editor to see whether it contains shader-style code, another readable format, or binary data—those three steps usually reveal the truth in minutes.