Refresh Visual Studio Code list of files

If you hover over the workspace root in the navigator, four icons appear to the right of it. The third of those icons, a circular arrow, is Refresh -- it reloads the file list.

EDIT: In the meanwhile a reload button has been added to the file explorer widget.

Use the workbench.action.reloadWindow command. Go to File -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shotcuts and define a shortcut for this command. On my system it's placed on Ctrl+F5. The entry in keybindings.json looks like this:

{
  "key": "ctrl+f5",
  "command": "workbench.action.reloadWindow",
  "when": "editorTextFocus"
}

You can use the command palette to reload the window:

1. Open the command palette with View > Command Palette... (or Shift+Cmd+P on OS X)
2. Type reload window and press enter