How do I set up debugging in visual code for a large c++ project

I am a beginner in c++ and vs-code but have been tasked to use/develop an existing c++ project (I have used python and sublime before this).

I want to be able to configure vs code so that I can easily debug and compile code without to much hassle.

Currently, this is the way I do it:

• Make some change in the code, for example in $basedir/src/folder1/file.cpp
• Go to $basedir in the terminal, and run
• a) make
• b) wait for it to go through a bunch of folders to find a file that has been changed.
• c) cd $basedir/programs/dawn; make clean; make
• And finally to run the project a type: $basedir/programs/project/projectname inputfile.json

What I want to do is to just press F5 (for debugging, or ctrl+F5 to run), but I don't know how to set everything up is vs code. Can someone help me?

These are my configuration files: In c_cpp_properties.json I have referenced two other projects, but I also have to add the current project include-directory in order for vs-code to not complain about include-file, etc (I thought it would automatically find files in the project with ${workspaceFolder}/**)

{
"configurations": [
    {
        "name": "Linux",
        "includePath": [
            "${workspaceFolder}/**",
            "~/otherproject1/include/",
            "~/otherproject2/include/",
            "~/Documents/projectname/include"
        ],
        "defines": [],
        "compilerPath": "/usr/bin/gcc",
        "cStandard": "c11",
        "cppStandard": "c++17",
        "intelliSenseMode": "clang-x64"
    }
],
"version": 4
}

{

tasks.json

"tasks": [
    {
        "type": "shell",
        "label": "g++ build active file",
        "command": "/usr/bin/g++",
        "args": [
            "cd ${workspaceFolder};",
            "make;",
            "make clean -C programs/projectname;",
            "make -C programs/projectname;",
        ],
        "options": {
            "cwd": "/usr/bin"
        }
    }
],
"version": "2.0.0"
}

launch.json

{
// Use IntelliSense to learn about possible attributes.
// Hover to view descriptions of existing attributes.
// For more information, visit: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=830387
"version": "0.2.0",
"configurations": [
    {
        "name": "g++ build and debug active file",
        "type": "cppdbg",
        "request": "launch",
        "program": "${workspaceFolder}/programs/projectname inputfile.json",
        "args": [],
        "stopAtEntry": false,
        "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
        "environment": [],
        "externalConsole": false,
        "MIMode": "gdb",
        "setupCommands": [
            {
                "description": "Enable pretty-printing for gdb",
                "text": "-enable-pretty-printing",
                "ignoreFailures": true
            }
        ],
        "preLaunchTask": "g++ build active file",
        "miDebuggerPath": "/usr/bin/gdb"
    }
]
}