Navigate a catalyst-governed project's rules, requirements, and drift right from the editor — chain inspector, health board with click-to-jump, propose-fix, and an authoring composer, all writing through the governing agent.
Installation
Launch VS Code Quick Open (Ctrl+P), paste the following command, and press enter.
A VS Code extension for projects governed by the catalyst
framework — the agent-installed
layer that gives a codebase one traceable structure for its rules, its
development work, and the history of why every change happened. This
extension makes that structure visible and navigable without leaving
the editor, and gives you a safe way to act on it — every write still
goes through the governing agent, never straight from the UI.
What it does
Chain Inspector — a sidebar tree of the full traceability chain
(rules → requirements/bugs/house-keeping/tests → features/roadmap →
steps → proposals and live runs) for every catalyst deployment open in
your workspace. Multi-root aware: each deployment gets its own
section. A requirement or bug with recorded implementation steps
expands to show them inline, and a requirement, bug, or step verified
by one or more tests expands to show those too. Click any node for
full detail in a webview.
Health board — diagnostics, gutter marks, and CodeLens surface
drift (orphaned artifacts, missing rule targets, dangling references)
directly in the editor, with click-to-jump from a problem straight to
the file and line it concerns.
Propose a fix, from the editor — a code action on a flagged
problem drafts a proposal describing the fix; the agent reviews and
applies it. Nothing is written directly by the extension.
Compose new work — the authoring composer turns a new rule,
requirement, feature, or roadmap item you describe into a structured
proposal with a valid, never-reused ID, ready for the agent to apply.
Run monitor — a live checklist and ledger for work the agent is
actively doing, so drift is visible while it's happening, not just
after the fact.
Agent window — run any of the deployment's own slash commands
(/check-rules, /show-backlog, ...) through its governing agent
from a per-project terminal, or send a node straight to an agent chat,
without a manual copy-paste into an unrelated session.
No deployment yet? Open a workspace folder with no catalyst
deployment and the extension offers to install one — a ready
instantiation prompt, one click to copy.
Requirements
A project governed by catalyst (a *.catalyst pointer file at its
root). No pointer yet? Open the folder anyway — the extension offers to
help you install one; see catalyst's own
repository for what that
involves.
Also available for Electron
The same UI ships as a standalone Electron desktop app for tracking
multiple projects side by side — see the
catalyst-ui repository.
