Sidekick Agent Hub
Multi-provider AI coding assistant for VS Code — inline completions, code transforms, commit messages, and agent session monitoring.
AI coding agents are powerful, but they run autonomously — tokens burn silently, context fills up without warning, and everything is lost when a session ends. Sidekick gives you real-time visibility into what your agent is doing, AI-powered coding features that eliminate mechanical work, and session intelligence that preserves context across sessions.
| Provider |
Inference |
Session Monitoring |
Cost |
| Claude Max |
Yes |
Yes |
Included in subscription |
| Claude API |
Yes |
— |
Per-token billing |
| OpenCode |
Yes |
Yes |
Depends on provider |
| Codex CLI |
Yes |
Yes |
OpenAI API billing |
Quick Start
- Install and authenticate Claude Code CLI:
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
claude auth
- Install the extension from the VS Code Marketplace or Open VSX
- Start typing — completions appear as ghost text
- Install the extension
- Run "Sidekick: Set API Key" from the Command Palette
- Set
sidekick.inferenceProvider to claude-api
- Ensure OpenCode is running (
opencode in a terminal)
- Set
sidekick.inferenceProvider to opencode
Note: OpenCode session monitoring reads opencode.db and currently expects an executable sqlite3 runtime in the host environment.
- Install Codex CLI:
npm install -g @openai/codex
- Set
OPENAI_API_KEY or CODEX_API_KEY
- Set
sidekick.inferenceProvider to codex
Features
AI Coding
Let AI handle the mechanical work — boilerplate, commit messages, docs, PR descriptions — so you focus on design and logic.
- Inline Completions — context-aware suggestions that understand your project, not just syntax (
Ctrl+Shift+Space to trigger manually)
- Code Transforms — select code, describe changes in natural language (
Ctrl+Shift+M)
- Generate Documentation — auto-generate JSDoc/docstrings from implementation, not just signatures (
Ctrl+Shift+D)
- Explain Code — five complexity levels from ELI5 to PhD Mode (
Ctrl+Shift+E)
- Quick Ask — inline chat for questions and code changes (
Ctrl+I)
- AI Commit Messages — generate meaningful messages from staged changes (sparkle icon in SCM toolbar)
- Pre-commit Review — catch bugs, security concerns, and code smells before they reach your team (eye icon in SCM toolbar)
- PR Descriptions — auto-generate structured summaries from branch diff (PR icon in SCM toolbar)
- Error Analysis — AI-powered error explanations and one-click fixes
Agent Monitoring
When your AI agent runs autonomously, you need to know what it's doing. Real-time dashboards, visualizations, and alerts keep you in control.
- Mind Map — interactive D3.js graph of session structure and file relationships
- Kanban Board — task and subagent tracking with real-time updates
- Project Timeline — chronological view of all sessions with duration, token usage, and expandable details
- HTML Session Report — self-contained HTML report with full transcript, token/cost stats, model breakdown, and tool-use summary — opens in a webview panel or browser
- Analytics Charts — tool frequency, event distribution, activity heatmap, and event pattern detection in the dashboard
- Event Stream — live sidebar tree view of session events with color-coded type icons and timestamps
- Conversation Viewer — full session conversation with search
- Tool Inspector — per-tool rendering (diffs for Edit, commands for Bash, etc.) with paired tool outputs (file content, stdout, search results)
- Subagent Tree — hierarchical view of subagent spawns with nested parent/child relationships
- Cross-Session Search — search across all sessions
- Notification Triggers — alerts for credential access, destructive commands, compaction, token thresholds
- Provider Status — live API health indicator scoped to the monitored provider: Claude for Claude Code sessions, OpenAI for Codex sessions, hidden for OpenCode unless you run the standalone status command
Session Intelligence
- Knowledge Notes — capture gotchas, patterns, guidelines, and tips attached to files, with lifecycle tracking and instruction file injection
Terminal Dashboard
All monitoring and intelligence features are also available as a standalone terminal dashboard — no VS Code required.
Note: The npm package is sidekick-agent-hub, but the binary is called sidekick.
npm install -g sidekick-agent-hub # requires Node.js 20+
sidekick dashboard
Browse sessions, tasks, decisions, knowledge notes, live event streams, and charts in a full-screen TUI. Eight panels including an Events panel for real-time session activity and a Charts panel with tool frequency, event distribution, activity heatmap, and pattern analysis. Press ? for keybindings. Standalone commands (sidekick tasks, sidekick decisions, sidekick notes, sidekick stats, sidekick handoff, sidekick search, sidekick context, sidekick status) jump directly to a specific panel or run one-shot queries. See the CLI Dashboard docs for the full guide.
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
sidekick.inferenceProvider |
auto |
Provider: auto, claude-max, claude-api, opencode, codex |
sidekick.sessionProvider |
auto |
Session monitor: auto, claude-code, opencode, codex |
sidekick.inlineModel |
auto |
Model for completions (fast tier) |
sidekick.transformModel |
auto |
Model for transforms (powerful tier) |
sidekick.debounceMs |
1000 |
Completion delay (ms) |
sidekick.commitMessageStyle |
conventional |
Commit format: conventional or simple |
sidekick.enableSessionMonitoring |
true |
Enable agent session monitoring |
sidekick.autoHandoff |
off |
Session handoff: off, generate-only, generate-and-notify |
Model settings accept auto (recommended), a tier (fast/balanced/powerful), a legacy name (haiku/sonnet/opus), or a full model ID. See Model Resolution for details.
Commands
| Command |
Keybinding |
Description |
| Toggle Completions |
— |
Enable/disable inline completions |
| Trigger Completion |
Ctrl+Shift+Space |
Manually request completion |
| Transform Code |
Ctrl+Shift+M |
Transform selected code |
| Quick Ask |
Ctrl+I |
Inline chat |
| Generate Docs |
Ctrl+Shift+D |
Generate documentation |
| Explain Code |
Ctrl+Shift+E |
Explain selected code |
| Generate Commit Message |
SCM sparkle icon |
AI commit message |
| Review Changes |
SCM eye icon |
Pre-commit review |
| Generate PR Description |
SCM PR icon |
Auto-generate PR description |
| Switch Provider |
— |
Change inference provider |
| Open Dashboard |
— |
Open session analytics |
| Dump Session Report |
— |
Export session data as text/markdown/JSON/HTML |
| Generate HTML Report |
— |
Full transcript report in a webview panel |
| Set Session Provider |
— |
Switch session monitoring provider |
| Browse Session Folders |
— |
Select session folder to monitor |
Troubleshooting
No completions? Click "Sidekick" in the status bar → "Test Connection" to verify provider connectivity.
CLI not found? Set sidekick.claudePath to the full path (find with which claude).
OpenCode issues? Ensure OpenCode is running and listening on port 4096. If session monitoring is still unavailable, verify sqlite3 is executable in the same environment as VS Code because OpenCode session discovery reads opencode.db.
Codex issues? Verify OPENAI_API_KEY or CODEX_API_KEY is set.
Full Documentation
For detailed guides, configuration reference, and architecture docs, visit the documentation site.
See Also
sidekick-shared — the shared data access library, published as a standalone npm package. Types, parsers, session providers, event aggregation, model pricing, and more — for building custom tools on Sidekick session data without depending on VS Code. Install with npm install sidekick-shared.
Sidekick Docker — real-time Docker management dashboard as a VS Code extension and CLI. Monitor containers, Compose projects, images, volumes, and networks with vi keybindings and live-streaming stats.
If Sidekick is useful to you, a star on GitHub helps others find it.
Found a bug or have a feature idea? Open an issue — all feedback is welcome.
License
MIT
