A “VS file” commonly represents a `.vs` extension file, but since some people also label Visual Studio’s `.vs` folder this way, its meaning relies on how it’s being referenced; if it really is a `.vs` file, it’s usually a vertex shader script for rendering pipelines, stored as plain text you can open in typical editors, and its code may mimic HLSL with constructs like `float4x4` plus semantics such as `TEXCOORD`, or GLSL with `vec3` feeding into `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 its Windows association settings; but a folder named `.vs` next to a `.sln` file is Visual Studio’s cache directory containing IntelliSense/browsing data, 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 window arrangements.

“.vs” can mean something else because file extensions are merely tags, with Windows treating them mainly as hints for which application should open them, leaving developers free to reuse the same extension in completely different ways, so not every `.vs` file should be assumed to be a vertex shader even if that’s widespread in graphics work; another app could assign `.vs` to its own vector-scene format, and Windows would still call it a “VS file” unless a program on your machine has associated with it.

A `.vs` file can also be “something else” because context determines interpretation; 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 custom 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 fast way to figure out what your `.vs` file actually is, treat the extension as a general hint and verify it by checking the folder and nearby files, reviewing its “Opens with” info, and opening it in a text editor to see if it looks like shader code, another text format, or binary—these three checks typically answer the question quickly.