VSCode does not find julia executable

I have VSCode very easy to work with, for the most part.

However, I’m running into trouble with configuring for a shared CentOS environment where we are developing a package together. I do not have root privileges and we have a very limited inode quota. The workaround is to use a shared environment for the JULIA_DEPOT_PATH with each user having a different JULIA_HISTORY as exported from BASH before starting Julia 1.5.3. This works fine from the REPL started through BASH, and we can share packages installed in the shared .julia directory specified by the depot path. We are also sharing the VSCode executable (v1.5.2). VSCode once started, refuses to accept that julia is installed, even if each user manually specifies the executable location. Somehow, only I am able to use VSCode + julia, through some permissions issue I do not understand. .julia and all subdirectories have permission 775.

Any pointers on how to get around this or even alternate workflow suggestions will be much appreciated.