Autoplans — AI Coding Agent, Project Planning & Task Management for VS Code

Autoplans is an AI project manager that runs inside VS Code. It connects the editor to your autoplans.dev account, so the project you are coding on has a real task backlog — tasks, subtasks, dependencies, comments and linked commits — in the sidebar, drawn as a task map, and editable without leaving the window. Plan the work in chat, then run a coding agent on your own machine that takes tasks from the backlog and updates them as it finishes them.

That account is also an MCP server, so the backlog is not trapped in one editor. Anything that speaks the Model Context Protocol — GitHub Copilot's agent mode in VS Code, Claude Code, Cursor — points at https://autoplans.dev/api/v1/mcp with an API key and reads and writes the same tasks the extension shows you. The extension does not configure those clients for you; each one is pointed at the endpoint in its own settings.

Features

🤖 AI coding agent, in its own window or an editor tab

Click the sparkle in the editor title bar to start an agent session. It opens in its own editor window by default; set autoplans.agentOpenIn to tab to keep sessions inline as editor tabs instead, and open several at once. The agent reads the project this workspace is linked to, works tasks from the backlog, and moves them to in_progress and then completed — or waiting_for_review when it could not verify the work — with a comment saying what was done and how it was checked. Sessions run on your machine with your own models and subscriptions.

🗺️ Visual task map

See the whole project as a graph: every task is a node, dependency edges flow left to right, and clicking a node shows its subtasks, comments and linked commits — with buttons to start, finish or reopen the task. A status bar button opens the map of the current workspace's project, and asks which project to draw when the workspace is not linked to one.

🧭 Workspace detection

A committed .autoplans/project.json marker names the project a folder belongs to, and the extension reads it before asking anything: in a linked repository the task map and the agent both resolve the current project from the marker, so you and your teammates point at the same backlog. Without a marker, the sync commands work the project out from the workspace itself — the name and description in package.json, then the first heading and paragraph of README.md and of .autoplans/README.md — and match that against the projects on your account.

📋 Projects & tasks in the sidebar

Browse every project with its completed/total task count, expand to tasks with status and priority, create tasks, and open a project on autoplans.dev.

💬 GitHub Copilot chat and JSON-RPC tool integration

An @autoplans chat participant answers questions about your projects and tasks and can create projects and tasks from the conversation. The extension also contributes language-model tools (autoplans_create_task, autoplans_update_task, autoplans_bulk_create_tasks, …) that GitHub Copilot's agent mode can call on its own, so a Copilot session keeps the real backlog current while it works. Underneath it is ordinary JSON-RPC tool integration: the extension posts tools/list and tools/call requests to the endpoint in autoplans.mcpEndpoint — https://autoplans.dev/api/v1/mcp by default — with your API key as a bearer token.

🔗 Works with your whole toolchain

The same account powers the Autoplans desktop app, the CLI, the Obsidian plugin, Claude Code, Cursor and OpenCode — one backlog, every surface.

Getting started

1. Install the extension.
2. Run Autoplans: Sign in with Browser — approve in the browser, done. (Or paste an API key from autoplans.dev → Settings → API keys.)
3. For agent sessions, install the agent once: npm install -g autoplans-agent — the panel offers this when needed.
4. Click the ✨ sparkle in the editor title bar and describe what to build.

A workspace is linked to a project by a committed .autoplans/project.json file, so the agent, the map and your teammates all point at the same backlog. The desktop app writes one for a folder you choose; it is four fields, so you can also write it by hand. How linking works →

Commands

Requirements

• VS Code 1.80+
• A free autoplans.dev account
• For agent sessions: Node 18+ and npm install -g autoplans-agent

Privacy & security

Your API key is stored in VS Code's SecretStorage, never in settings or on disk in plain text. Sign-in uses a browser round-trip with a checked state parameter — no key travels through a clipboard.

The coding agent runs locally: the extension starts the runtime on 127.0.0.1 with a username and a password generated fresh for that run. The agent interface is a webview that talks to the runtime from the page, so it is handed that loopback address and password; both are scoped to the running process and are discarded when it stops.

Error reports are sent to autoplans.dev so problems in the extension can be diagnosed; turn them off with autoplans.telemetry.enabled.

Links

• 📚 Documentation
• 🚀 Quickstart
• 🖥️ Desktop app
• 🐛 Support