Studio Chat

Team chat in the VS Code sidebar, backed by your own PocketBase server. Sign in, send messages, and see everyone else's messages in a shared room.

Live at https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AndyStudios.studiocodechat&ssr=false#overviewhi

Features

• Sidebar chat panel in the Explorer view
• PocketBase sign-in with sessions saved securely in VS Code Secret Storage
• Shared message history loaded on sign-in
• New messages sync via PocketBase realtime and polling (every 5 seconds by default)
• Your messages on the right, everyone else's on the left
• Author names on message groups

Quick start

1. Install Studio Chat from the Marketplace (or from a VSIX).
2. Open the Studio Chat panel in the sidebar, or press Cmd+Shift+C (Mac) / Ctrl+Shift+C (Windows/Linux).
3. Click Sign In (or run Studio Chat: Sign In from the Command Palette).

On first sign-in you will be prompted for:

1. PocketBase server URL — the URL your team admin gave you (e.g. https://your-server.example)
2. Sync interval — how often to poll for new messages in seconds (0 = realtime only)
3. Username or email and password for your PocketBase account

Settings from step 1–2 are saved to your VS Code user settings. Credentials are never written to settings files.

Security

Do not commit or share:

• PocketBase server URLs in public repos, screenshots, or chat unless your team intends them to be public
• Usernames, passwords, or auth tokens
• .env files used for local development

How Studio Chat stores data:

Sign in through the extension UI — do not put passwords in settings.json, .env, or the README.

Configuration (optional)

Most users only need the first-time sign-in prompts. You can also set these in VS Code settings:

Example (use your team's URL, not a shared demo value):

{
  "codechat.pocketbaseUrl": "https://your-server.example",
  "codechat.syncIntervalSeconds": 5
}

Commands

PocketBase setup (server admins)

Studio Chat expects a PocketBase instance with a users auth collection and a messages collection.

messages collection fields

API rules

Set these on the messages collection:

On the users collection, allow authenticated users to view records so author names can expand:

If messages save but do not load, the List/Search rule is almost always the problem.

Realtime updates use the same List/Search rule — if polling works but messages are delayed, check Studio Chat: Show Logs for realtime errors.

Development

For local extension development only:

npm install
npm run compile

Press F5 to launch the Extension Development Host. You may copy .env.example to .env and set POCKETBASE_URL for local runs — .env is gitignored and is not included in the published VSIX.

npm run watch     # Watch mode
npm run lint      # ESLint
npm test          # Run tests

License

MIT