Lodestar

Lodestar is an extension for VS Code, Cursor and Antigravity IDE for reading code you didn't write and reviewing code before it goes in. It uses the models you already pay for: Copilot Chat's in VS Code, your Cursor plan's in Cursor, your Antigravity plan's in Antigravity IDE, or any model API with your own key.

Install it from the VS Code Marketplace, or in Cursor, VSCodium and other forks from Open VSX.

You get 3 free codemap or review runs (plus hover explanations while you try it) to see how it works on your own codebase. After that it costs $5, once, plus tax where your country charges it. No subscription: one key works on up to 10 of your devices and doesn't expire. Buy Lodestar ($5)

Codemaps

Ask how something works. Lodestar follows the code and answers with the path it takes, step by step, each step pinned to a real line. Click a step and the editor goes there. Tab moves to the next one.

Explain on hover

Hover a function, a keyword, an operator, even a regex, and you get a few lines on what it does in this codebase. Read more opens a longer explanation in Lodestar Explain, its own icon in the activity bar, with the places it's used.

Reviews

Review your uncommitted changes, a branch or a commit. You get a verdict, the diff in an order that's easy to read, and the problems: bugs, security holes, slow code, and the mess AI assistants tend to leave behind, like comments that repeat the code, tests that don't test anything, or packages that don't exist.

Findings show up in the editor too, and most come with a fix you can apply in one click.

Reviews are in Source Control too: Review Changes and Check Dependencies sit in its title bar, Review Changes picks uncommitted changes, the branch or any commit, and right-clicking a commit in a file's timeline reviews just that commit.

Dependencies a change adds are checked against OSV.dev for known vulnerabilities, and against npm, PyPI, crates.io and RubyGems to make sure they're real. If your repo has a REVIEW.md, AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md, reviews follow it.

Getting started

1. Open Lodestar from the activity bar and ask how something works, press Review changes, or hover some code. Lodestar uses your default Copilot Chat model automatically, or you can run Lodestar: Choose Models and Thinking Effort to pick specific models.

   In Cursor, Lodestar uses your Cursor plan's models through Cursor's official CLI (agent acp) with no setup; run Lodestar: Use Cursor Models to install or sign in to the CLI, in Cursor or in VS Code. In Antigravity IDE, run Lodestar: Use Antigravity Models: Lodestar starts Antigravity's own server and signs you in with Google. Elsewhere, Lodestar: Set Up a Model API works with OpenRouter, OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek, GLM, Kimi, MiniMax, Command Code, Ollama Cloud, Ollama or LM Studio. Models and their thinking-effort levels come from your provider and models.dev, so new ones show up without an update.

2. Try 3 maps or reviews for free. To unlock unlimited use, buy Lodestar ($5) and run Lodestar: Enter License Key with the key from your receipt.

In VS Code's Copilot Chat, @lodestar makes a map, and /review and /explain work there too.

To move your license to another device, run Lodestar: Remove License Key on the old one, or remove a device in your Polar account.

Privacy

Your code only goes to the model you picked, same as in Copilot Chat. Maps and explanations are saved in VS Code's storage on your machine.

A few other services see a little:

• Polar checks your license key, once a day. If Lodestar can't reach Polar for 30 days, it locks until it can.
• OSV.dev gets the names and versions of your dependencies.
• npm, PyPI, crates.io or RubyGems get the name of a package a change adds. Projects on a private registry are skipped.

You can turn the dependency checks off with lodestar.review.checkDependencies. If you set up a decision model for the slop check, it sees the code a change adds, and it can run locally.

Lost your key? It's on your purchases page. Found a bug or missing something? Open an issue.

The pictures above show Express (MIT).