BuildContext

BuildContext is a free, privacy-first VS Code extension that traverses workspaces, detects applications and solutions, extracts codebase knowledge, and writes compact knowledge-base Markdown files per application (<app-id>.md and KB_INDEX.md). AI coding agents (Claude Code, Copilot, Cursor, Gemini) can load these context files instead of consuming thousands of tokens reading raw codebases.

Core Features

• 100% Rule-Based & Offline by Default: Scanning, project detection, script parsing, symbol extraction, dependency graph generation, and indexing require no network calls, no API keys, and no telemetry.
• Opt-in AI Authoring Modes: BuildContext: Workspace AI and BuildContext: Refine Path AI allow optional AI models (VS Code LM API, Anthropic, Gemini, OpenAI-compatible servers, or local Ollama) to synthesize knowledge-base documents with strict evidence-grounding validation.
• BuildContext Refine Path: Deduplicates, merges, and de-noises folders of Markdown knowledge files to maintain compact token budgets.
• Agent Pointer Generation: Writes managed pointer blocks to AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, .github/copilot-instructions.md, and .cursor/rules/buildcontext.mdc.
• Multi-Language Support: Deep & Tiered analysis across Java, .NET (C#/VB/F#), C/C++, Delphi/Object Pascal (including text DFMs), Python, JS/TS (React, Angular, Vue, NestJS, Express), Dart/Flutter, PowerShell, Perl, Go, Rust, Kotlin, Swift, PHP, Ruby, Shell, SQL, Docker, K8s, OpenAPI, and Proto.
• Secret Protection: Values in configuration files and environment definitions are strictly redacted. Only key names are extracted.

Commands

• BuildContext: Workspace: Automatic scan of the active workspace (intelligently updates changed apps, settings, or rule-packs).
• BuildContext: Folder...: Scan a selected folder.
• BuildContext: Refine Path: Optimize, merge, and compact a folder of .md context files into a _refined/ subfolder.
• BuildContext: Workspace AI: Opt-in AI-authored knowledge generation.
• BuildContext: Refine Path AI: Opt-in AI section merging.
• BuildContext: Generate Agent Pointers: Add pointer blocks for AI agent guidelines.
• BuildContext: Open Index: Open KB_INDEX.md.

Preserving Custom Notes

Any notes placed under <!-- buildcontext:manual --> or wrapped inside <!-- buildcontext:keep -->...<!-- /buildcontext:keep --> in generated .md files will be preserved verbatim across regenerations and refinement passes.

License

MIT License. Completely free and open source.